Garrick Duckler

 Psychotherapy      Psychoanalysis

People come to see me for many different reasons. It's hard to capture the variety. sometimes it's a crisis. Sometimes they don't understand why they keep doing something. sometimes they're stuck or somehow wind up with a certain kind of person in their life. SOmetimes it's about trouble getting into something. Sometimes it's about trouble getting out of something. I would say for each person there is always something different and unique about what they would want to be different in their lives.

My approach is direct, curious, collaborative. I try to get to know who the person is, how they live in the world, what are the forces that may have shaped their mind and heart. I work with each person to gain access to other parts of their pscycho-emotional lives. We try to find our own language to talk about what they need to talk about. I try to listen to different registers, different voices, different aspects of the self. Sometimes a person needs help to gain access to parts of themselves that are cut off or atrophied, sometimes they live their lives in one part without ever really paying attention to other aspects of themselves. Sometimes every so-called little thing gets to them. Sometimes nothing matters. Again, the variety is endless.

when there is a good match in treatment between the two people, the person coming in often feels a great relief from what they have been living with. Sometimes other Things start to happen in their lives. They speak of things they didn't have the room for before. Or something suddenly occurs to them that feels sudden and necessary (even if the process has been gradual). Or sometimes they look back where they were when they started and had no idea that they had come so far.

I enjoy the people I work with. I have a lot of respect for them. They come with a real need and they should expect real help. That doesn't mean, I tell people what to do or how to think. It just means that I try to provide a place where one’s inner experience can be received and listened to, where the world of (conscious and unconscious) feelings, imaginings, fantasies, thoughts can be followed, shared, explored and discovered. I aspire to create a space where we both can start to understand what might be happening, what might be felt and what might be needed. For many, many people, it has proven to be one of the most profound and impactful experiences in one's life. 

Garrick Duckler, LMFT

2279 NW Irving Street
Portland, OR   97210

(503) 862-3449