Therapy for Depression
In-person therapy in Beverly Hills and surrounding Westside neighborhoods. Telehealth sessions available across California.
Understanding Depression
Depression can feel like a turning inward of energy, a retreat from life when engagement has felt too painful or overwhelming. Beneath the heaviness, there is often a story of loss, frustration, or unmet longing that has not yet found expression. In our work together, I help bring these experiences into awareness and into relationships, so that what has been frozen or dampened can begin to move again, allowing vitality and meaning to reemerge.
Alongside deeper exploration, we’ll build gentle supports that fit your life: steadier sleep and wake times, brief grounding, and small, doable steps that help you re-enter the moments you care about while we work on the roots.
Located in Beverly Hills, my practice offers a thoughtful, open space to explore these struggles and gently uncover their deeper, unconscious roots.
Common Signs & Symptoms of Depression
Persistent low mood, emptiness, or irritability
Loss of interest or pleasure in activities you once enjoyed
Sleep changes (insomnia or oversleeping) and appetite shifts
Fatigue, slowed thinking or movement, or feeling “shut down”
Difficulty concentrating, indecision, and self-criticism
Withdrawal from friends, family, or school/work responsibilities
Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or hopelessness
My Approach to Working with Depression
My work is psychoanalytic, drawing from Classical Freudian, Object Relations, and Lacanian traditions. Practically, this means I listen for what is said and unsaid, the themes in your language, the feelings that go quiet, and the relational patterns that keep repeating. Depression often carries a message about grief, conflict, or desire that hasn’t yet had words.
In our sessions, we will:
Name what has been muted: Give language to losses, frustrations, and longings so they can be held rather than avoided.
Trace the pattern: Link current shutdowns to earlier experiences and relationships, making the depressive retreat understandable, not a personal failure.
Open room for choice and desire: As meaning returns, we’ll support your re-engagement with people, projects, and places that matter to you.
The Impact of Depression on Daily Life
School & Work: Absences, procrastination, difficulty focusing, and reduced performance
Relationships: Pulling away from loved ones, feeling misunderstood, or easily overwhelmed
Body & Sleep: Headaches, stomach discomfort, irregular sleep that worsens low mood
Motivation & Meaning: Losing the thread of what matters, struggling to begin even small tasks
We’ll map these patterns together, reduce the pressure they create, and help you reclaim energy and direction in daily life.
Frequently Asked Questions about Depression
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Psychoanalytic therapy helps depression by exploring how it organizes around earlier pain, loss, and present relationships. Rather than focusing on symptom management alone, this approach addresses the underlying emotional conflicts that keep depression in place. As the patterns underneath the depression come into view, what felt permanent often begins to shift.
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High-functioning depression often goes unrecognized because daily life continues to operate. You go to work, meet obligations, and appear to manage, but underneath there is a persistent flatness: low mood, fatigue, or a numbness that makes nothing feel quite real. It is not a formal diagnosis, but it reflects a genuine form of depression that can persist for years precisely because it does not match the stereotypical picture of what depression is supposed to look like.
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Medication can ease the symptoms of depression, and for some people that relief matters. Psychoanalytic therapy works at a different level: rather than managing low mood directly, it asks what the depression is expressing and where it took root. The two are not opposed, and many people use both. In my work, I often meet people who found symptom relief useful but sensed that something underneath remained unaddressed.
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You do not need to be in crisis to begin therapy for depression. If low mood, fatigue, or withdrawal has persisted long enough to feel like your baseline rather than a passing state, that is reason enough. Many people seek help not because things are unbearable, but because they sense that the way they have been living is not the way they want to continue.
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We can begin wherever you are, sometimes with very little said at first. Your pace sets the tone. Over time, even small dialogues can open movement and relief.
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Teens may show more irritability, social withdrawal, or school avoidance, while adults often report low mood, fatigue, and loss of interest. In both, feeling “numb” or disconnected is common.
