Will Friedman, Ph.D.
Psychologist
License:   PSY 10092   

Presence-centered Psychotherapy - Freeing the ego to live free

Downtown Pleasanton - East Bay San Francisco bay area


Will Friedman, Ph.D.
275 Rose Avenue, Suite 212
Pleasanton, CA 94566



925-600-9966

fax 925-600-1441

drwilljoel@comcast.net


As a seasoned clinician with 31 years of experience working with adults, couples, families, adolescents and older children, my aim is to understand your challenges and collaborate in setting an achievable vision in the present. Licensed as a psychologist in California for over 20 years, my major focus is Presence-centered psychotherapy. Recognizing, healing and freeing the ego as a mistaken identity is central within Presence and cultivating the ability of inner witnessing. The emphasis is on enhancing strengths, building resilient inner resources and providing immediately workable tools, skills, strategies, distinctions and experiences. Our shared, on-going collaboration can help create enhanced internal congruence, external productivity and inhabiting the True Self.

Together with my clients, we create a deepening awareness of here-and-now experience, develop an appreciation of their challenges and collaborate in a healing process. A sage, supportive and validating environment is offered as an invitation for a vibrant, energized experience of authentically being alive, awake, aware, present and free to be your Real Self. Our work is nested within a context of psycho-spiritual transformation, one that includes Judaic-Christian-Universal as well as non-dual spirituality as appropriate.

Services
I am committed in daily practice to "awakening" and healing that is sustained.

The emphasis is on developing, shaping and deepening strengths in accepting life and "what is" in a context of relaxed clarity, presence and equanimity. The vision offered goes beyond an "intellectual understanding" of one's life challenges, that is, breaking issues down into components and seeing how they fit together and operate in specific ways. The vision offered is to "stand under" a palpable experience of direct living, sensing and feeling--another meaning of the word "understand". Each consultation is the opportunity to meet clients exactly where they are in this moment of their lives and offer what is most adaptive and immediately useable.

A range of therapeutic approaches is drawn upon that all support "doing what works" and are individually tailored for each client. Bringing a solid background with cognitive- behaviorial and psycho-dynamic therapies, along with family systems and Ericksonian-narrative approaches, our work rests on three core orientations, like a three-legged stool.

The first leg is more and more simply "being present" in this moment as well as witnessing one's mind or ego in freeing oneself from incessant thoughts, beliefs, stories and roles.

The second leg is learning and honing a targeted set of tools, skills, abilities, distinctions and strategies to effectively address uncomfortable symptoms, live more functionally and peacefully during daily activities as well as thrive in the world.

The third leg is the use of mind-body approaches to help move all the way through and release the emotional "charge" on unworkable patterns, mistaken beliefs and survival decisions. To desensitize and deconstruct beliefs continues to be especially helpful for clients. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a remarkably powerful mind-body approach that uses bilateral stimulation (that is, safe and simple stimulation of both sides of one's body) to help resolve incomplete traumas, clear the charge on old unworkable patterns and install more workable ways of knowing and valuing one's true capabilities and strengths.

When combined, these three core approaches can be remarkably synergistic, supportive, powerful and useful in enhancing the therapeutic enterprise and healing process of wholeness. The hallmark of this vision is facilitating the entrance of clients into the organic space of empowerment in the now, that is, to encourage and invite clients to assume authority and accountability for making true choices in their life, living in the present, and inhabiting truly fulfilling and contributing lives.

I'm a "stretch", not a "shrink", who still loves and enjoys the privilege of contributing to receptive, proactive clients, especially ones who bring a clear-eyed, heartfelt commitment to grow, unfold and evolve into being who they truly are.

Areas of Expertise
* Stress
* Anxiety, phobias and panic
* Depression
* Chronic pain
* Psycho-spiritual growth / crises
* Couple relationships
* Family system dynamics
* Parent-adolescent relationships

Office Information:

My private practice functions by appointment. My hours are usually from about 9 AM to about 9 PM during the normal Monday through Friday workweek. Sometimes clients are seen on weekend days given genuine emergencies or, in very unusual situations, if no other time can be found.

Contact by phone at (925) 600-9966 or by email at drwilljoel@comcast.net is best. If this is a time-urgent matter, you page using the number (925) 397-7777 and put in the phone number including area code you can be reached and push the # sign.

Will Joel Friedman, Ph.D.
Psychologist (California License Number: PSY 10092)
275 Rose Avenue, Suite 212
Pleasanton, California 94566
Phone: (925) 600-9966
Fax: (925) 600-1441
Pager: (925) 397-7777
drwilljoel@comcast.net
www.willjoelfriedman.com

A courtesy free 20-minute telephone consultation is available for new clients to answer any questions about my practice, approaches and background.

Dr. Friedman's private practice is situated in downtown Pleasanton in the East Bay San Francisco Bay area. His office is quite central to the tri-valley and east bay area. Here are directions to his Pleasanton office:

Coming from the NORTH (Dublin, San Ramon, Danville & Walnut Creek):

Go South on the 680 freeway and get off at Bernal Avenue. Stay on the right and make a right onto Bernal Avenue going East toward downtown Pleasanton. Go about 1 1/2 miles and just after the police department make a left onto Main. You will have a stop sign and a pair of signals. Go through downtown and turn left onto Rose Avenue at the signal (Neal is on the right and Rose is on the left). Go 3/4 of a block to the two-story white building with green trim. Park on the street or in the covered parking on the first floor. Go upstairs using the elevator or stairs, down the hall and turn right.

Coming from the SOUTH (Fremont, Hayward & San Jose):

Go North on the 680 freeway and get off at Bernal Avenue. Make a right onto Bernal Avenue going East toward downtown Pleasanton. Go about 1 1/2 miles and just after the police department make a left onto Main. You will have a stop sign and a pair of signals. Go through downtown and turn left onto Rose Avenue at the signal (Neal is on the right and Rose is on the left). Go 3/4 of a block to the two-story white building with green trim. Park on the street or in the covered parking on the first floor. Go upstairs using the elevator or stairs, down the hall and turn right.

From the WEST (Castro Valley, Hayward, San Leandro & Oakland):

Go East on the 580 freeway to the interchange with the 680 freeway. Then proceed South on the 680 freeway toward San Jose and get off at Bernal Avenue. Go about 1 1/2 miles and just after the police department make a left onto Main. You will have a stop sign and a pair of signals. Go through downtown and turn left onto Rose Avenue at the signal (Neal is on the right and Rose is on the left). Go 3/4 of a block to the two-story white building with green trim. Park on the street or in the covered parking on the first floor. Go upstairs using the elevator or stairs, down the hall and turn right.

From the EAST (East Livermore, Livermore, Tracy & Stockton):

Go West on the 580 freeway and get off at Tassajara / Santa Rita Boulevards and make a left onto Santa Rita Boulevard going South toward downtown Pleasanton. After about two miles or so the street changes into Main Street. Go a small number of blocks and just past Washington Mutual Bank make a right onto Rose Avenue (it says Neal Avenue on the left). Go 3/4 of a block to the two-story white building with green trim. Park on the street or in the covered parking on the first floor. Go upstairs using the elevator or stairs, down the hall and turn right.