PSYCHOTHERAPY SERVICES

Dr. Tobin’s clinical psychotherapy practice consists of individual psychotherapy with adolescents, young adults, and adults. He also conducts marital/couples therapy, as well as parent guidance training. Relationship concerns, along with conditions including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and generalized states of dissatisfaction, lack of fulfillment, and disappointment account for a significant portion of Dr. Tobin’s practice. Dr. Tobin also works with patients who are experiencing major life stressors and/or transitions (e.g., coping with divorce; grieving the death of a loved one; beginning a new job/new career). Additionally, Dr. Tobin consults with patients on psychological factors involved in the professional workplace and on aspects of one’s life history that may be related to career dissatisfaction and/or disillusionment.

Couples therapy is offered to partners who may have been married for several decades to those who are in a newly-established relationship. Dr. Tobin’s approach views common presenting problems for therapy (e.g., poor communication, suspected or actual infidelity, diminished sexual involvement, job/career transitions, and stressors including the birth of a child or the illness/death of a parent or sibling) as representative of inherent vulnerabilities in the dynamics of the couple that were likely not acknowledged previously.

For Dr. Tobin the couple is a system in which each partner comes to adopt a role necessary for the stability and functioning of the relationship. In the context of life events and stressors, as well as the general growth and evolution of each partner’s identity, theses established roles inevitably need to be re-evaluated and revised across time. Distressed couples, however, often need guidance and exploratory therapy to instill in their relationship a greater degree of role flexibility and fluidity so that each partner can continuously define and re-define who he or she is in relation to the other. If the couple is able to achieve this through therapy, intimacy will be reborn and the partners will emerge as figures of support and positive influence for each other. The dissolution of restrictive role assignment also helps to clarify if, for some couples, the ending of a conflictual and unfulfilling relationship is a suggested option.

Dr. Tobin applies his research experience to therapy with adolescents and young adults, with a focus on addressing developmental challenges common at this point in the life course and often manifested in high-risk behaviors, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, displays of under-achievement or over-achievement, and conflict/discord with parents). Dr. Tobin works individually with adolescents and young adults yet frequently supplements this treatment with parent guidance and parent-teen family sessions. This clinical approach acknowledges that the teen/young adult lives within a family system and in relationship to parents who may be confused, anxious, and concerned about what their child is experiencing, how to keep their child safe, and how to establish/maintain appropriate boundaries.

To address parents’ concerns about how to parent more effectively, Dr. Tobin has developed a series of interventions designed to support parents’ influence and authority with regard to their child, while at the same time enhance also enhancing the skills necessary to relate to their child. The attempt is to supplant potentially enmeshed, overly-anxious and/or restrictive parenting approaches (which have been shown in the research literature to be generally ineffective) with a relational model that bolsters parents’ credibility and capacity to influence their child.

Aligned with this relational approach, Dr. Tobin has developed a unique coding system known as ARCC™ (Assessment of Relational Contingencies and Consequences) that is designed to assess the nature of interpersonal dynamics in conflictual families. The system utilizes a customized coding scheme to evaluate videotaped footage of parents and children interacting, which then allows for therapeutic interventions to be made directly with parents by closely inspecting the moment-to-moment elements of the encounter with their child. For a detail description of ARCC™, please click on this hyper-link.