Both matter — and in my clinical experience, the most effective outcomes come from combining psychiatric medication management with consistent, skilled psychotherapy. Medication can stabilize mood episodes, but it doesn’t teach you how to recognize your early warning signs, navigate the relational damage that episodes can leave behind, or rebuild the sense of identity and self-trust that bipolar disorder so often erodes. That is precisely where therapy comes in. I work collaboratively with psychiatrists and prescribers to ensure my clients receive integrated care that addresses both the neurological and the psychological dimensions of their experience.

One of the most consistent things I hear from clients in my 20+ years of practice is that bipolar disorder is profoundly misunderstood — by the people around them, by clinicians who haven’t specialized in it, and often by themselves. The manic or hypomanic states are not simply “feeling good.” They can feel like clarity, creativity, and finally being fully alive — which is part of why people resist treating them. The depressive episodes are not simply sadness. They can be a complete neurological shutdown — a loss of motivation, pleasure, identity, and hope that feels permanent even when it isn’t. Understanding the full clinical picture of what you are experiencing is one of the most important things therapy can provide.

Profoundly, and yes. Bipolar disorder doesn’t just affect the individual — it reverberates through every close relationship they have. Partners of people with bipolar disorder often carry enormous amounts of fear, grief, and resentment that go unaddressed because the focus is always on the person with the diagnosis. Children are affected. Friendships are affected. As a Gottman Method Certified Therapist, I work with couples navigating the relational impact of bipolar disorder directly — helping both partners feel seen, building shared language around the condition, and creating relational structures that support stability rather than inadvertently undermining it.

These are meaningfully different presentations that require different clinical approaches. Bipolar I involves full manic episodes — periods of significantly elevated or irritable mood, decreased need for sleep, and impaired judgment that are severe enough to cause major functional disruption and may include psychotic features. Bipolar II involves hypomanic episodes — less severe elevations that don’t reach the threshold of full mania — alongside depressive episodes that are often the more dominant and debilitating feature. Cyclothymia involves chronic mood instability that cycles between hypomanic and depressive symptoms without meeting the full criteria for either. Getting the diagnosis right matters enormously for treatment — and it is something I take seriously from the very first session.

Yes. I provide therapy to clients throughout California via secure telehealth, in addition to in-person sessions at my Westlake Village office. Serving Westlake Village, Malibu, Calabasas, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Newbury Park, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Oak Park, and surrounding areas in Los Angeles and Ventura County — and beyond throughout California via telehealth.