Sam Golden Psychology
M.P.
“I worked with Dr. Golden for over 5 years and he was absolutely wonderful. We made so much progress during that time and I can't be more thankful for his guidance and work that he did with me. I highly, highly recommend Dr. Golden for anyone who wants an intuitive, caring, and knowledgeable psychologist.”
KIND WORDS
Therapy
Men’s Group
Dead Parents Club
Therapy
Individual Therapy
Adults only
50 Minute Sessions
Virtual and/or In Person
Out of Network with all insurance carriers; superbill provided to pursue OON benefit reimbursement
Weekly for the first 3 months, then increase or decrease frequency as needed
$300/session
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation
Men’s Group
Focus: Navigating the Male Loneliness Epidemic
Group Therapy
Male-identifying adults only
90 Minute Sessions
Virtual or In Person
Out of Network with all insurance carriers; superbill provided to pursue OON benefit reimbursement
Weekly for 6 months
$75/session
Schedule a Consultation
Office Location
Faq
Dead Parents Club
Focus: Living with the grief of losing a parent
Group Therapy
Adults only
90 Minute Sessions
Virtual or In Person
Out of Network with all insurance carriers; superbill provided to pursue OON benefit reimbursement
Weekly for 6 months
$75/session
Hey, hey!
I’m Dr. Sam Golden
Getting more of what you want in life requires being more you.
That’s my job: to equip you with the ability to know your patterns, love each part of yourself, show up how you want to in your own life, and experience freedom in who you are.
I specialize in relational depth work and body-based awareness. My lived experience with grief and loss and my dissertation research and training in relational trauma enable me to help you safely go places that are hard to get to. And my natural warmth and humor allow you to relax, connect, and trust.
You’re already working so hard. Let me help you rest into a life that feels easier.
We’re a great fit if you not only want to understand why you relate to people the way you do, but to actually retrain your nervous system to handle today differently.
Approach
Awareness
We start with mindfulness, slowing down and increasing your self-reflective capacity. We’ll do some psycho-education, helping you understand how your thoughts, emotions and physiological sensations interact. You’ll become more aware of your patterns — what elicits a response from you, and what that response is. Which feelings are safe and easy for you to feel and share, and which ones feel scary, shameful, or unproductive.
When we can’t regulate our emotions, we’re much more likely to return to patterns that make us feel “safe” — like people pleasing, overworking, avoiding conflict, or performing without actually feeling satisfied. This part of the process is where we start to drop the performance. Using somatic techniques, we’ll experiment with how to regulate feelings when they get overwhelming, and what it’s like to express those regulated emotions differently.
Tolerance
Knowing a pattern exists is different than feeling the pattern play out in your life in real time. This is when you start responding differently to the same stressors — by setting boundaries, expressing anger, being vulnerable, facing conflict, etc. You’ll experience the cycle of feeling an emotion, noticing that you’re feeling the emotion, doing something (different) about it, and then sitting with the empowerment and pride you feel in the new you.
Behavior
The goal of our work is to help you feel safe, content, and free to be your whole self. That includes the parts of you that still bristle in the face of certain triggers. You’ll learn how to get the different parts of yourself talking, empathize with them, and integrate them together into an expansive whole. A You that you can live with for the rest of your life.
Wholeness
You can read more about the tools I use to guide us through this process, including Relational Psychodynamic Theory, Trauma Informed Therapy, Somatic Therapy, Mindful Self-Compassion and Buddhist Psychology, here.
Timeline
We identify why you’re here now. We’ll talk about the areas where you feel stuck or scared, and the things that make you feel alive. Our first session is about getting to know who you are today, and who you’d like to be tomorrow.
FIRST SESSION
What do you want to get out of this therapy thing?
What is it like to live a day in your body and mind?
In our first month together, we’ll identify patterns of behavior and relationships that you’re feeling stuck in — mentally and physically. We’ll start by building awareness of what’s happening in your mind and body, engaging in practices that offer moments of relief right now, and doing the prep work to help you show up in your life differently going forward.
ONE MONTH
We’ll know we’re really in a groove when we’re crying or yelling and laughing all in the same session.
THREE MONTHS
After 12 sessions, the particular mindful awareness we’ve been building in session will start to make a difference outside the therapy room. You’ll begin to identify the patterns of thinking, feeling, sensing, and relating we’ve been focusing on as they happen in your day-to-day life. Sometimes that recognition will be enough to unlock new responses- both those we’ll practice together to help you tolerate challenging emotions, and spontaneous new ways of relating to others. You might even surprise yourself by saying or doing things that feel brand new. We’ll also help you notice at least brief moments of a felt sense of safety, ease, strength, creativity, and freedom in different areas of your life.
You’ve shifted from reacting to responding — on your terms.
Six months in, we’ve created true trust in our relationship: I’ll ask how things are really feeling, and hopefully you’ll tell it to me straight. We’ll have identified patterns that get activated over and over based on old hurts and the mechanisms you’ve developed to protect yourself from them. You’ll build your capacity to interrupt automatic reactions using practices like mindful self-awareness, somatic affect-regulation, and courageous compassion. In other words, at this point, we’ve created room for you to choose — to call the shots on how you show up in your relationships and your life. My role is to validate, coach, and lovingly call you on your shit.
SIX MONTHS
After a year of therapy, the different parts of you will have had time to show up to the party- the workaholic perfectionist, the quietly attuned helper, the angry protector, the sensitive, vulnerable sweetheart- and we’ll be dancing with all of them. You’re familiar with the emotions and responses that live in each of these pieces of you, and what activates them. You’re able to interrupt how things have played out before by relating to these parts differently.
You’ll still be you, and some of those familiar sensitivities will still be around, but you’ll be able to identify and navigate them with flexibility and confidence. You’ll have more acceptance for the things about yourself you once shied away from, because you’ll be able to hold the pain they cause without becoming overwhelmed. Your relationships will feel better. Maybe you made that major life change you were stuck on before.
With this expanded range in tolerable emotion and choice, you’ll also feel uncomfortable at times. Many people have to adjust to feeling satisfaction, fulfillment and joy. Maybe you’re less of a people-pleaser now, and some people in your life are not pleased about it! Maybe these changes prompt you to grieve or mourn the way you lived before, or the way you didn’t get to live until now. I’ll be here to help.
ONE YEAR
Your life will feel different after a year of therapy
What Happens Next?
1
Consultation
A free 15-20 minute vibe check. Bring your questions for me. We should both leave this conversation with enough safety and curiosity to have a paid session. Schedule here.
Onboarding
2
Everyone’s favorite: paperwork. So we can transition into a psychologist-patient relationship, and create context to make the most of our first session.
First Session
3
During our first session, I find out what it’s like to live a day in your mind and body. You find out what it’s like to connect with and be seen by me. We both have a say over whether or not we’re a good fit to move forward.