Your life is unlike anyone else’s. Get psychotherapy tailored to your life.
Dr. Maxwell tailors his therapeutic approaches to the unique challenges of each client. He uses time-honored, evidence-based interventions to help people live their most fulfilling lives.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
Originating in the 1960s, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) ranks among the most research-supported psychotherapies available today. It is generally well-received by clients and effective for a wide variety of life and mental health challenges including depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
What can one expect from CBT?
A better understanding of how our thoughts, actions, and emotions impact one another to shape our experiences of life from day to day
A better understanding of how “deep” and often unspoken beliefs about ourselves, our worlds, and our futures give rise to our moment-to-moment thoughts and actions
An array of tools to help us become more aware of our beliefs, thoughts, and actions and begin to restructure them for enhanced wellbeing
Practical strategies for confronting the sources of our anxieties and fears, leading to increased feelings of mastery and decreased anxiousness over time
Psychodynamic therapy
Psychodynamic therapy is one of the oldest and most celebrated therapy traditions in the world. Compared to CBT, psychodynamic therapy places greater emphasis on our relationships and how they shape who we are and who we become. Although there are many schools of psychodynamic therapy, Dr. Maxwell uses a modern and research-supported therapy called transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP). TFP is a kind of psychodynamic therapy that helps us understand how our experiences of our relationships often shape how we think, feel, and behave in our worlds. It has been shown to especially help people with borderline and other personality disorders.
UPDATE: Dr. Maxwell is presently pursuing formal certification for providing TFP via Columbia University.
Eclectic approaches fitted to your unique circumstances and personality
Dr. Maxwell also frequently uses evidence-based interventions from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and 3rd wave therapies including acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). These interventions include:
DBT skills (e.g., interpersonal effectiveness and distress tolerance) for coping with severe emotional distress and relationship troubles
Mindfulness skills and acceptance strategies for acknowledging and tolerating difficult experiences
Identification and use of personal values in therapy to build a more personalized roadmap for progress and how to measure it
And others . . .
Measuring your growth
Tracking personal growth, changes in symptoms, and progress toward goals in psychotherapy is important. In fact, best practices in psychotherapy urge mental health providers to at least offer their clients opportunities to use tools that help measure therapeutic change.
Dr. Maxwell routinely uses the outcome measures to help monitor clients’ changes in therapy over time. These measures include the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), and more.
A note about forms for new clients and use of questionnaires in psychotherapy
Dr. Maxwell will email all intake forms prior to the first teletherapy or in-person therapy meeting. New clients will also receive access to a client portal online so they can upload the intake forms prior to their first appointments.
Dr. Maxwell uses many tools to help clients better understand their experiences throughout psychotherapy. He may ask clients to complete different self-report questionnaires that provide scores for aspects of personality, symptoms of depression and anxiety, style of attachment, and other subjects in psychology and mental health relevant to psychotherapy.