Read more about ISDR's unique approach to therapy.
We don't tell you what your relationships must look like. With the help of research and best practices, we help you figure out what you actually want — and then build toward that. Supporting your self-determination is the foundation of our work.
Knowing why you do something doesn't make you stop doing it. We support you to make changes in your environment, relationships, and self to build towards a life you can thrive in. Insight matters, but it's rarely enough on its own.
Our clinicians approach each person with curiosity — not a cookie-cutter. We pay attention to family history, cultural context, and the specific pressures that shaped you. We strive to help you build a life that actually fits, not fit you into a therapy model box.
We strive to use the best available evidence to guide our work. That is why we track outcomes in our clinic: to give clinicians another source of information and to keep improving the care we provide.
Self-Determination Theory identifies three basic psychological needs that shape well-being and help explain many of the struggles that bring people to therapy.
Living authentically from your own values, not from fear, guilt, or what you're supposed to want. Most people who come to therapy have lost some degree of autonomy — sometimes without realizing it.
Feeling like you can actually handle this — your relationships, your work, your life. When competence gets shaken, people often start to feel overwhelmed, stuck, perfectionistic, or never quite good enough.
Feeling deeply known, cared for, and connected to people who matter to you. Not just being around others or "performing" closeness, but experiencing real connection and belonging.
SDT also offers a continuum of motivation — from actions shaped mainly by external pressure to a way of living that feels more chosen and aligned with who you are. Many of the struggles that bring people to therapy live somewhere in the middle: doing what you should do, what keeps the peace, or what you learned was necessary to belong. Our approach helps people understand where those patterns came from and build a life guided more by genuine choice than by external obligations.
Co-developed at ISDR by Dr. Jared Anderson & Dr. Brady Eisert
Built to meet you where you're at.
Most therapy frameworks emphasize only one or two of the psychological needs. Self-Determination Based Therapy (SDBT) is built directly on all three.
Most frameworks
Most therapies address competence.
Attachment therapies emphasize relatedness, and differentiation therapies emphasize autonomy.
SDBT
Built to support autonomy, competence, and relatedness together — as one integrated framework.
Since the three needs are universal, SDBT doesn't start with restrictive assumptions about what your life or relationships should look like.
SDBT was built to support you from the ground up — not formed around a limited type of person/relationship and adapted to others after the fact. That's what allows us to integrate the best parts of approaches like Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Gottman Method without getting constrained by the assumptions they rely on.
SDBT gives us powerful tools that help map your functioning in five areas to address what's driving the problem:
Motivation
Are your choices coming from pressure, guilt, or from you?
Environment
How do different contexts tend to support or undermine you?
Emotions
Are emotions regularly suppressed, overwhelming, or integrated into how you live?
Reactivity
How do you react when things get hard in relationships?
Values
What are your deeply held values, and how integrated are they in your daily life?
Within SDBT, our clinicians also draw from some of these evidence-based approaches.
Developed by Dr. Sue Johnson
Building a deeper, more secure bond.
EFT is grounded in attachment theory, which holds that relationship distress is fundamentally a disruption in the felt security of the bond. Many studies support its effectiveness for certain types of relationships.
EFT helps to map your conflict cycle, addressing dynamics like pursue-withdraw. It can also help to uncover the vulnerable emotions hiding below protective ones and how they relate to triggers and insecurities. Healing happens when we can more effectively and directly address the underlying emotions and insecurities to build connection.
Developed by Drs. John & Julie Gottman
Specific behavioral change tools.
Built on decades of observing how certain types of couples interact. Emphasizes behavioral change and education for understanding and addressing relationship problems. Several common rules-of-thumb come from the Gottman Method (5-to-1 positive to negative interaction ratio, 69% of problems are perpetual).
The Gottman Method provides simple, digestable tools for making behavioral change once the underlying emotional and motivational patterns are understood.
Developed by Neil Jacobson & Andrew Christensen
Exploring problems and learning acceptance.
IBCT provides helpful conflict style classification tools and emphasizes acceptance strategies alongside targeted change. This is one of the more empirically supported relational therapies.
IBCT provides tools for exploring the context of problems and understanding which ones are better addressed with acceptance versus change strategies.
Developed by Dr. Ellyn Bader & Dr. Peter Pearson
Conflict as a signal, not a verdict.
The Developmental Model maps relationships through five natural stages: Bonding, Differentiation, Exploration, Re-connection, and Synergy. Conflict is understood in part as the failure to navigate the current couple stage and progress to the next.
The Developmental Model provides a bigger-picture perspective of where the relationship may be in its lifecycle and the themes we can address to move it towards authentic intimacy, addressing the tension between togetherness and individuality. It provides the Initiator-Inquirer framework for building communication patterns that lead to both individual and relational growth.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy + Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Building flexibility and updating the thought processes that hold you back.
CBT identifies and restructures the thoughts and patterns that maintain distress. ACT extends this with psychological flexibility and acceptance — acting in alignment with your values even when you're uncomfortable.
CBT explores the cognitive process underlying your responses and tests whether they're accurate or just familiar. ACT addresses distress through acceptance strategies that increase cognitive flexibility, helping you to act in alignment with your values despite difficult experiences.
Developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz
Helping you become yourself.
IFS proposes that the mind is made up of a family of 'parts' — each with its own perspective and intentions. Some parts get traumatized and carry burdens. All parts, even destructive-seeming ones, are trying to help. Therapy is about helping your deeper self become the leader of these parts again.
IFS identifies different parts that serve different roles for you. We approach them with curiosity and help them show up in ways that feel more authentic to who they and you are. This is especially helpful for trauma, compulsive behaviors, people pleasing, and rediscovering yourself.
Developed by Michael White & David Epston
The problem is the problem — not the person.
Narrative therapy works from the premise that the stories we tell about ourselves shape what we believe is possible. Problems sometimes turn into identities ('I'm an anxious person') when they're actually patterns that have histories, contexts, and exceptions.
We externalize (name) the problem as something separate from us, and explore the exceptions to the story about that problem. We build a new strengths-based story about who you are and what you're capable of.
Presented by Irvin Yalom; rooted in existential philosophy
Wrestling with reality to live authentically.
Yalom's existential approach focuses on four unavoidable concerns: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. Rather than treating anxiety as a symptom to eliminate, it is a natural response to being alive and an invitation to change the way you relate to reality.
Existential therapy is powerful, especially when addressing hopelessness, meaninglessnes, your identity, burnout, and the bigger picture in life. It helps to make sense of the roles that religion, relationships, work, and other contexts play in our lives.
Developed by Virginia Satir
Growth through authentic contact.
Virginia Satir's model focuses on self-worth, communication patterns, and the unspoken rules families develop around emotion. We tend to learn ways of surviving and relating to others early in life that keep showing up, even if the context has changed.
Satir helps identify your regular coping stance (placating, blaming, being overly rational, distracting) and helps you learn how to be more flexible in your approach. This helps you show up more authentically and congruently.
A 15-minute call to understand what brings you in, answer your questions, and determine whether we are the right fit.
The first few sessions are dedicated to building a thorough understanding of your history, goals, and the dynamics you want to address.
Together, we articulate what success looks like for you — specific, realistic, and grounded in your values.
Weekly or biweekly sessions working toward your goals, with regular check-ins to ensure the work continues to feel aligned.
There is no universal answer. Some clients achieve significant change in 12-20 sessions; others work for years on more complex issues. Relationship therapy follows a similar pattern but tends to be more structured and time limited than individual work. We review progress regularly and let your goals guide the timeline.
Yes. We offer both in-person and telehealth sessions. Many clients find video sessions equally effective and more practical for their schedules.
ISDR is an out-of-network provider. We can provide superbills for clients to submit for reimbursement. Some therapists offer insurance coverage for individual work through Headway. Contact us to discuss your coverage options.