Leading
Southcoast Massachusetts
Psychotherapy
Sometimes the hardest step to take in psychotherapy is the first one--making the decision that continuing to struggle with something all on your own just doesn't make sense any more. People are often grappling with issues for awhile: anxiety, depression, work-life balance, interpersonal relationships, loss of someone important to them, self-esteem. As the training director in the Fall River mental health center, one of the things that I tried to impart to student-clinicians was the primacy of the relationship-- that the most important factor in choosing a therapist is finding someone who they feel comfortable talking to.
It becomes my role to try to create an atmosphere that feels safe, genuine, and non-judgmental---a place where it feels easy to talk about difficult things. As a clinical psychologist, supervisor, and therapist of more than 20 years, my experience has usually allowed me to do just that.
I see it as my role to help you discover how you have come to find yourself in the difficult/ painful situation you are in. And together,find ways to understand & resolve it. I started drfarrellypsych.com as one way to reach out to people who might benefit from my skills and experience--if you are one of those folks, I invite you to reach out to me to explore if we might work together.
Private Psychotherapy
Choosing a therapist is a crucial decision. It is essential that you like your therapist and feel at ease with them if treatment is going to be helpful. It is not easy to open up and share your experiences and struggles with another person--even someone with professional training and experience. Developing trust and a sense of comfort and safety is a process. I respect that you will share what you deem necessary to our work together in a manner and within a timeframe that is comfortable for you. My focus is on meeting and respecting your individual needs, providing a space that is compassionate and open, where you feel understood rather than judged, and where you are able to experiment with new ways of being and relating.
I take an integrative approach to therapy. Current research, as well as my experience and training, help me to determine the best treatment strategies from among psychodynamic, relational, humanistic, existential, cognitive and behavioral approaches that are likely to be most effective in addressing your concerns. However--with all that being said--you are the expert on you. No amount of education, training or experience on my part will change this. Thus, my role is not to tell you my way of dealing with the issues you face, but rather to try to create a supportive environment that facilitates reflectiveness, helps your own self-awareness and increases insight into these difficulties. Over 20 years of experience has taught me that I am working with unique individuals, not diagnoses, and the treatment milieu needs to reflect that.
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