My synagogue offers my counseling services to non-members at the rate of $350.00 per one hour session.

 

Most of the issues that people want to address are covered in my classes.

 

For those who desire one-on-one or small group sessions: I don't offer traditional therapy. Oftentimes, traditional therapy seeks some traumatic event in the early life of a person, and seeks to see how this traumatic event replays throughout our lives. This view holds that we are who we are because of early childhood events. Personally, I doubt that this view can fully explain who we are. I believe our personalities derive mostly from our genetic inheritance, then from our upbringing early on, but that we continue to develop through later childhood, teenage years and as adults. The work of spiritual psychology counseling, therefore, is not so much about finding out why, in our past, we did what we did but rather how our inner lives, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and therefore speech and behavior that drive in one direction or another, are organized.

 

Most people need wisdom counseling for several reasons. First, they don't have a clear vision of what they want for themselves, their relationships and their lives. Secondly, even if people do have a vision, they often lack the will and the skill to see it through. Vision, will and skill are all teachable, but my experience has been that even good, smart and successful people sometimes have not learned the particular skills for managing important aspects of their lives, especially their spiritual and interpersonal lives.

 

Instead of traditional therapy, I guide people through what I call the ten deadly disruptions and distractions: anger, resentment, depression, loss, despair, guilt, shame, fear, anxiety and envy.

 

These are, of course, not isolated patterns of consciousness. For example, an angry person or one who can't assert boundaries and needs, or one who might eventually find themself in a depression - not clinical, chemical based - but a disengagement from the world because it has become too difficult to manage. 

 

In brief, people lack skills -- simple in concept, but difficult to implement. The skills I teach take constant training and honing.  Most people whom I counsel only need a few sessions to learn the skills, and then they have to engage in constant practice. Spiritual growth is similar to learning a musical instrument or a physical skill - vision, will, skill and practice. 

 

For more on my counseling, see: