It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found - D.W. Winicott
About My Practice
I do not believe in dysfunctional individuals, families, or relationships. I feel that throughout our lives we respond to hardship and distress with highly effective adaptations. When those patterns of thought and behavior do not evolve, we can feel stuck or trapped - individually and in stagnant, painful relationships. In our work together, we will wear new grooves, develop fresh perspectives and tools to guide us out of that stuck place into greater happiness and adaptability to an ever-changing life.
My approach is to offer you what I believe is needed to help that evolution along: equal parts compassionate encouragement and challenge. We will explore and co-create a new version of the story you have been telling about yourself and others, learning to identify and sit with emotions that you may be accustomed to brushing off or dealing with on your own. This can be challenging, but may help you to feel some relief right away. Sharing your story and experiencing validation and acceptance creates genuine connection which accelerates the therapeutic process.
Some of the challenges I can help you address are: relationship distress, family conflict, parenting, self-esteem, shame, depression, anger, anxiety, job stress, creative blocks, gender identity, spirituality, sexuality, life transitions, grief and loss. I enjoy tailoring the work we do to your particular needs, and I have a variety of tools available to meet those needs.
“Tell me what you yearn for and I shall tell you who you are. We are what we reach for, the idealized image that drives our wandering.”
James Hillman
About Me
My name is Reuben Simon. I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Portland, Oregon (License T1912). I am straight-forward in my approach to sitting with people. I profoundly enjoy getting to know you on a deeper level and, while I can be very patient, I am also very transparent and assertive where needed in order to keep things moving out of stuckness. I maintain a sense of humor and lightness in the room, and I'm equally comfortable with the gravity of pain/distress. I have lived in Portland for 10 years and counting, coming from LA, NY and the Bay area. I spend my free time hanging with my wife, my son and our community of friends. I love playing and listening to music of all kinds (even a little country as long as it's not too country). I'm a big fiction and memoir fan, both reading and writing. And I love to cook, except when I don't, then I love being cooked for.
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Couples/Relationship Therapy
Every healthy relationship has conflict. Despite what you may have heard, conflict is good and can be an opportunity for connection. It can also be extremely disconnecting. As the cliche goes, it's not whether you fight but how. Avoiding conflict, problems with how we recover (repair) from it, or problematic imbalances of power can all lead to strife in relationships. Utilizing models such as PACT and EFT, we can make these patterns clear, then explore whether conflicts that trigger strong emotional responses are rooted in needs that have gone unmet or boundaries that have been crossed. My process is intended to help couples move from unintentional, unclear motivation to clarity and intentionality. I am happy to share more about process with you when we meet.
Boys & Men
Contemporary masculinity is as diverse as it has ever been, but still often stifling and restrictive. Are you struggling to define what it means to be a man? Are you a father working hard to be present and caring, while also offering clear boundaries? Are you and your partner disconnected or overtly hostile toward one another? Do you find yourself containing anger or rage and not having an outlet for it? Are you dissatisfied with yourself professionally and/or financially? Do you feel you might have over-dependence on alcohol, marijuana, media, pornography, or anything that provides an escape? Being a man invites unique challenges to therapy that I feel especially qualified to address, having devoted myself to professional and inward investigation of the masculine identity. Please contact me if you would like to discuss working together.
Physicians & Medical Providers
I am very familiar with the struggles and contradictions inherent to the medical profession. The stress, exposure to suffering, and complex professional, social and financial demands of a hospital and/or medical group are immense. The expectations you have of yourself, and that are put upon you, frequently lead to burnout, "moral injury" and undiagnosed covert depression which then leads to long-term physical and mental health concerns, and negative impact on patient care and personal life. Even self-care often turns into a source of pressure, perfectionism and shame. Finding outlets and balance when work is as all-consuming as the medical profession is extremely difficult, but it can be done. Please contact me if you would like to meet in person to discuss your particular concerns.
Creatives
Devoting one's life to creative expression, whatever form that may take, invites a host of potential challenges. I am all too familiar with many of them, having spent the first part of my professional life in a creative field. Some obstacles you may face are: isolation and loneliness, questioning your path, skepticism from family or friends, relationship distress, financial worry, emotional dysregulation, anxiety and depression. While it is true that all of these problems exist for people outside of creative fields, when your primary source of revenue and interaction is your self, the impact can be heightened considerably. It's as if the work never leaves you and lines can become very blurry. People with acute sensitivity tend to gravitate toward creative endeavors, and the task of creative immersion can then feed back on those impulses. If you would like to discuss working together, please contact me to set up an appointment.
“THE CURIOUS PARADOX IS THAT WHEN I ACCEPT MYSELF AS I AM, THEN I CAN CHANGE.”
CARL ROGERS
