"With an open, empathic, non-judgmental style, I work with people from all walks of life who are looking for healing, change, and growth."
Issues that Dr. Fuller commonly addresses with psychotherapy:
- Relationship problems
- Marital/Couples therapy
- Unhealthy relationship patterns
- Sexual Identity
- LGBT Support
- Developmental disorders
- Pain management
- Hearing voices
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Grief & Loss
- Complex Trauma
- Shame
- Guilt
- Family of Origin Issues
- Self-esteem
What is psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy is a broad term that can include many techniques, styles, and philosophies. There are common factors among the many different approaches and, as a whole, decades of research have shown psychotherapy to provide significant benefit to people who choose to try it. [Read more...]
People are social beings. In fact, emotional or physical isolation and loneliness are powerful risk factors predicting physical and psychological ill-health. In its broadest sense, psychotherapy has been referred to as a special type of “social healing practice.” It is a process of social or interpersonal collaboration between people for the purpose of healing and growth. Typically, the people involved include a therapist who has special expertise in how to facilitate the process working with one person, or with a couple, a family, or a group.
Across different types of psychotherapy, the quality of the therapeutic relationship between the therapist and the person seeking therapy is one of the strongest determining factors of success. Contributing to the quality of that relationship are elements such as respect, trust, empathy, positive affirmation, corrective experiences, a sense of working together for a defined purpose and in a way that fits with the person’s world view, and having a safe, accepting person with whom to talk about difficult personal topics.
You may have heard of some of the different types of therapies by their names or abbreviations, such as Behavior Therapy (BT), Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, and so on. Other specific techniques you may have heard of are often components of a broader type. For example, Prolonged Exposure (PE) Therapy is a CBT approach to treating trauma, and Mindfulness training is often a part of DBT and ACT, but also used by therapists across many orientations. In actual practice, most therapists tend to overlap many of these approaches but usually under an over-arching umbrella of some form of theoretical or philosophical understanding about how the human mind works and how to understand human development, personalities, emotions, and the nature of psychological problems.
With so many different approaches, techniques, theories, and philosophies to choose from, one highly respected researcher on the subject summed up his best recommendation for people searching for a therapist: find the most competent therapist possible whose theoretical orientation is compatible with your own outlook.
What is psychodynamic psychotherapy?
Arguably the original talking therapy, developed and enriched by scientific research and clinical wisdom for over a century, psychodynamic or psychoanalytic psychotherapy holds a special place among all types of therapy. Virtually all other approaches to therapy can trace roots back to psychoanalytic origins, either arising as a branch from that original tree, or sometimes by defining themselves in terms of how they differ from psychotherapy origins. [Read more...]
From its founding position in the history of psychotherapy, psychoanalytic psychology is appreciated for its expansive explanatory power for understanding the complexities of the human mind, human development, emotional and personality functioning, causes of psychological problems, and even the interactions of groups and societies. For decades, the Division of Psychoanalysis has remained one of the largest Divisions of the American Psychological Association, and research has shown that when other types of therapies incorporate psychodynamic/psychoanalytic methods, the more effective they are, adding to the benefit of other empirically-based approaches to therapy.
Factors and Assumptions That Make Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Unique
The common factors previously described that contribute to the effectiveness of psychotherapy in general apply to psychodynamic psychotherapy as well, but there remain several defining factors and assumptions unique to psychodynamic approaches. Keep in mind that even psychodynamic therapists may make use of techniques familiar to other types of therapies (such as identifying distorted thoughts and cognitive reframing, mindfulness training, problem-solving, and so on), but these represent integrations of methods into the broader psychodynamic view of what therapy is, based on the needs and individuality of the person in therapy. [Read more...]
Other psychologists and theorists have taken on the task of trying to define what makes psychodynamic therapy special. The following list represents just one more attempt, insufficient in many ways, but perhaps at least enough to give a reasonable overview to people who are trying to find a therapist and figure out what kind of therapy they may want or need.
1. Recognition of "unconscious"
From a psychodynamic point of view, much of what people do, think, say, or feel is connected to sources that remain outside of our awareness. In other words, these underlying sources are “unconscious.” Unconscious concerns seem to have a way of finding their way out, showing up in disguise as symptoms, painful feelings, or unhealthy patterns. We often end up puzzled over having the same kinds of repeated and painfully familiar experiences. A few of many common examples:
Why am I so depressed all the time?
Why do I always assume I was in the wrong, or only focus on the one thing that went wrong?
Why do I keep dating the same kinds of guys/women and running into the same problems?
Why do I over-react to things that don’t seem to deserve so much emotional energy?
Why do I doubt myself? Mentally beat myself up?
Why am I afraid of falling apart?
Why am I so afraid people will reject me?
Why do I feel horrible about myself whenever I am anything less than perfect?
Why do I have these hang-ups about sex?
Why do I get so caught up belittling and judging other people?
Why am I so out of touch with my feelings?
Why do I think having feelings makes people weak?
Why do I feel so nervous when there isn’t really any danger around?
Why do I get so angry, jealous, envious, or competitive?
Why do I emotionally pull back from people right when things are feeling closer?
2. Working with emotional protection or "defenses"
Many of the issues we are conflicted about remain out of our awareness for what seem like good reasons. They may seem too scary, dangerous, uncomfortable, shameful, or anxiety-producing. There are many clever ways in which we try to protect ourselves emotionally from these difficult issues and feelings. From that inner point of view, there are issues that remain too distressing to remember (consciously), but too important to forget, so, we internally defend ourselves in ways that hold these things out of our awareness, but not truly forgotten. Usually, when someone decides they are ready for therapy it is because these emotional protections are not working as well as they once did.
3. Limits of emotional energy
Psychodynamic psychotherapy assumes each person has a limited amount of emotional energy. The more energy devoted to building up and maintaining inner emotional protections, the less energy is available for love, curiosity, relationships, pleasure, learning, working, and living a fulfilling life.
4. Valuing self-understanding and personal honesty
Psychodynamic psychotherapy assumes there is curative value in knowing one’s self deeply and honestly, safely letting go of defenses, and becoming your authentic self. Being honest with yourself, being honest about your true motives, and being open about what previously was too painful or difficult to see in yourself—these are keys to emotional and personal enrichment.
5. Past experiences and relationships
Especially those with powerful emotional associations, past experiences and relationships are important in psychodynamic psychotherapy because they typically lay down lasting patterns of thoughts, feelings, actions, and relationships that are central to understanding what is going on in the present when a person comes in for therapy. Often, people experience some of those old patterns of thoughts and feelings in the therapy relationship itself, creating important directions for the therapy work.
6. Expressing feelings
Finding words to describe feelings and connect them to long-hidden (unconscious) concerns can be liberating. So, yes, your therapist may ask you, “How do you feel?” and it matters!
7. Wishes, dreams, and fantasies
These can often contain important clues to understanding unconscious concerns that you may be getting ready to deal with more directly. Moreover, psychodynamic therapists readily accept that people have many mixed and often conflicting wishes, fantasies and feelings, even to the point of being simultaneous opposites or mutually exclusive (“I want this and I don’t want this at the same time!”).
8. Mental life develops over time
Psychodynamic therapy considers psychological functions and capacities to follow a lifelong developmental course. That developmental course can be influenced by experiences, close relationships, early developmental temperament, inner conflicts, trauma, and many other factors. Sometimes therapy may focus on making use of your healthy psychological capacities, and sometimes therapy may help you develop capacities that have been affected, or held back by adverse experiences.