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Dr. Greenberg's areas of specialization include:
Depression and Anxiety are frequently experienced in the fast paced area of Silicon Valley. Many people
who live here are very competent in their working worlds but struggling in their personal lives. Many of
the other problems Dr. Greenberg specializes in are common as well in the Valley.
Depression:
Feelings of sadness frequently, low energy, excessive sleeping or insomnia, feelings of low self esteem or
worthlessness, lack of interest in your normal activities, lack of sexual desire- these are signs of depression.
Anxiety:
Is it hard for you to calm yourself down? Do you worry excessively, ever have feelings of panic, turn things
over in your mind a great deal, have difficulty sleeping, feel overwhelmed or pressured, or feel "stressed
out"? These are anxiety symptoms.
People who experience anxiety may have difficulty expressing their needs, feelings or taking time for
themselves. Often the anxiety is a symptom that they feel something is not quite right in their world but
they just do not know what exactly what.
Feeling stress is partially an instinctual necessity that motivates us into action,
and partially to do with the way we think; it is not in itself a "bad" thing. However,
it can quickly become overwhelming. Stress can feel like worries that you can't
put aside. Stress can also hit hard in response to a crisis, leaving you feeling
wrung out. Prolonged stress causes serious health risks and is not something
you should have to endure.
High stress jobs include CEOs, Vice Presidents, Lawyers, Doctors, and
high-pressure technical positions. In startup environments, high stress is common in
all positions, especially Sales Executives, Marketing Executives, VPs, the CEO,
and other key management and technical positions.
People don't usually feel stressed when they the time and resources to
manage a situation. They feel great stress when they are rushed and when they
think they can't handle the demands put upon them. Stress is not an inevitable
outcome of a specific event; it depends a lot on people's perceptions of a
situation and their ability to cope with it. Prolonged stress often occurs for
people in sales or executive management positions, in startups, and for people
with a chronic illness.
Are You Stressed?
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Do you feel angry when people make you wait?
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Do you put enjoyable things off until later - like
getting together with friends, taking a long-weekend off from work,
engaging in a favorite hobby, or reading a good book?
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Do you spend a lot of time going over and over things in your mind?
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Do you find it hard to turn off your thoughts when you go to sleep?
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Does it seem like you never have any spare time?
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Do you work longer hours than most of my associates or friends?
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Does it feel as though you are always rushing?
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Do you get less sleep than you think you need?
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Do you find yourself multi-tasking constantly, doing
more than one thing at a time (for example, eating while driving)?
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If you can answer "yes" to three or more of the above questions, you
would likely benefit from stress management therapy.
Stress therapy can help you to cope with the stress of work overload,
manage the stress of dealing with problem people, and cope with family
stress, or chronic illness. It helps you to think about things
differently so that your outlook on the world becomes a calmer one.
Couples go through many phases in relationships from meeting to marriage and feelings and attitudes
change throughout the course of the relationship. Difficulties or "feeling stuck" can arise at any of these
stages. It is important to assess where the couples is, and help them to change whatever negative patterns
have developed that result in them coming to seek help. Communication patterns are addressed first of all
and once a couple is communicating effectively many problems do not seem as insurmountable. Other
types of interaction patterns that can cause difficulties result when a person marries someone who touches
off issues that remind them of one of their parents. The first partner hopes unconsciously that the other will
not do things that their parent did, or that the couple can work through the problem. Put simply, couples
are good at knowing how to push each other's buttons. However, once they become aware of what buttons
they are pushing at deeper levels couples will often be able to learn to stop the behavior that hurts their
partner.
Some specific issues Dr. Greenberg has experience working on with couples are:
Communication Problems, Sexual Difficulties, Verbal Abuse, and Affairs.
Our society focuses around eating as a manner of socializing (dining out, having friends over for dinner)
and work environments (food is usually involved in company parties, entertaining customers, even in
office meetings). And yet our society is full of pressure to have a `perfect body'. As children, many
people are taught to calm themselves down by eating - like when the mother gives a small child, who is
hurt, a cookie. Also as children, many people are given food as a reward for "being good" or for being
successful - "If you pass your test, we'll go out for ice cream." These factors set people up for eating
issues and disorders, as do any emphasis on perfection - either in body or in other areas of life. Food
becomes a method to soothe oneself, which can result in compulsive eating. It can also be a means of
control - "No one can make another actually eat".
Feeling out of control in many areas of one's life can
relate to the problems of bulimia and anorexia.
If you find yourself eating compulsively, or controlling your intake of food through binging and purging, or
excessive compulsive exercise (not simply staying in shape) then you are struggling with either an eating
issue or disorder.
Are you grappling with any of these issues?
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Setting limits
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Preventing or solving childhood eating problems
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Developing strategies for handing blowups/tantrums
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Helping your child with their relationships with peers or peer pressure
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Struggles at home over listening
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Difficulties with homework or chores motivation
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It is important to learn how to listen to and understand your child's concerns to foster a healthy family
environment. Learn how to have cooperation in your family- without nagging. Finding ways to help your
child to attain a positive self-image.
Dr. Greenberg, through working with the parents, looks at the family as a whole to see where specific
issues have evolved. Patterns and issues can arise within the family as it develops, or can be passed down
through the generations. Parents know both consciously and unconsciously, how they were raised. At
times even if they are attempting not to repeat patterns of their parents, parents may do or say the same
things their parents did or said. Once these patterns are made conscious and processed, parents may make
dramatic positive changes in their family's environment. It has been shown through research that the
healthiest child development occurs when the parents are authoritative - not authoritarian. This is the
difference between setting limits in firm way with a loving approach, vs. a "no questions" ever
environment. So, the parent can learn to communicate the fun and excitement of life, while still setting
limits in a strong way so that children feel "heard", enjoy their family, and also feel safe, and learn values
and good behavior.
Most of the issues that are listed in the rest of this section may be experienced by adolescents. However,
some of the symptoms and the way they manifest themselves may vary slightly with teenagers. Teenagers
are a unique type of creature. They vacillate between desiring a great deal of independence to wanting to
be coddled like a young child. This is a normal phase for this age, but can be fraught with difficulties and
struggles for both teenager and parent alike. Teenagers need a special type of experience in therapy, they
need to be treated with respect, but also need guidance. Unconsciously, they hope that their therapist will
protect them from the problems they may encounter in the world, while often consciously they want their
therapist to accept them for who they are as individuals. Both of these needs coexist and therapists who
work with teenagers must be able to balance the role they play for these "almost adults". It is also
important for the teenager to feel they can really open up to the therapist. At the same time it is essential
that the therapist help the parents to feel supported as well so the family as a whole can whether this
challenging time.
Dr. Greenberg conducts therapy with the adolescents alone or in family therapy depending on the
adolescent's and families needs. Some specific issues Dr. Greenberg has experience working on with
adolescents are:
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Identity issues (finding themselves and where they fit in)
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Drug use and abuse
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Peer pressure
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Eating disorders/body image difficulties
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Motivational problems
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Depression and anxiety
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If you are concerned about whether you have a problem with alcohol or drugs ask yourself some of the
questions below (if your concern is marijuana or other drugs substitute those for the words alcohol or
drinking):
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Do you drink to build your self-esteem?
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Do you drink to begin an evening if you will be socializing with peers or going on a date, to help you feel more comfortable?
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Have you ever missed time from work or school because of drinking the night before?
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Do you drink alone?
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Do you drink to escape worries?
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Have you ever avoided a particular restaurant because it doesn't serve alcohol or drank first before going to
a place where you know there will not be alcohol served?
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Do you ever feel guilty after drinking?
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Have you ended up fighting with those close to you when you were drinking?
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Do people close to you worry about your drinking?
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Do you "do without" other things to buy alcohol?
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Do you drink until whatever type of alcohol you have is gone?
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Have you ever had any legal problems associated with drinking? DUIs?
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Do you ever experience black outs in which you don't know what happened the night before?
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Have you ever gone out at night, once settled in, to get alcohol?
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The above questions are part of an assessment that has been frequently used to help people identify how
much emotional energy they have around alcohol. If you ever wonder about the answers to these questions
then it may be that you want to explore whether you have a drinking problem.
Dr. Greenberg believes that there are a variety of ways to address these issues and that people change in
their own time. She focuses on interweaving the work on problem drinking with other issues that a client
may want to address. If someone wants to stop drinking, a therapist should help them to do this, but should
do it in a manner that suits the clients' own needs and pace.
Growing up in an unpredictable family can lead to certain difficulties as an adult. Many adults from these
families:
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Have difficulty with intimacy and trust
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Feel overly responsible for others
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Put everyone else's needs before their own
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Have difficulty expressing their feelings
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Have low self esteem and can be overly self critical
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Get involved with alcoholics and drug users
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Experience depression and/or anxiety
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Blame themselves whenever things go wrong
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Have difficulty relaxing, having fun, or just enjoying life
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Adult children of alcoholics often have experienced families in which they felt the drinking parent didn't
love them. They may have felt to blame for the alcoholic's shifting moods. When a child is young and
they have a parent who is either unavailable emotionally due to their drinking or is irritable because of a
hangover, the child often feels they have done something wrong. This makes a child feel unimportant, and
that if they express their feelings it may be dangerous. The parent may get angry or defensive and blame
the child when the child is upset, or the alcoholic parent may just not have the "gas" to deal with the child's
problems. Both ways of responding lead an individual to repressing their emotions; in the first case,
repressing feelings is to protect their relationship with their parent and to protect themselves, and in the
second case, repression of feelings is for the purpose of not burdening or bothering their parent. These are
some healthy adaptations to an unhealthy environment. Often people get stuck in these patterns in their
adulthood. However, therapy can frequently help to change these patterns of difficulty in expressing
feelings, difficulty allowing oneself to get one's own needs met, and problems with intimacy.
Trained at Stanford Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center and having been an affiliate of the Addictions
Institute from 1992-2001, Dr. Greenberg has treated adult children of alcholics in a variety of clinical settings and in
her private practice.
When a couple who is trying to get pregnant finds out that they are unable to without medical intervention
of some kind, often at first there is a feeling of shock. Once they enter the challenging area of attempting to
try alternative methods of getting pregnant, one or both members of the couple may have a feeling of being
on a rollercoaster. There is a cycle of hope and great disappointment or even despair if they do not get
pregnant the month in which they are trying. This can be a long road and often people need support in
getting through this time. As a member of Resolve, Dr. Greenberg is well versed in working through the
emotional difficulties of infertility with couples or individuals.
When a person is abused as a child the result can vary from mild to severe interference in a variety of areas
of their life, depending on the severity of the abuse and the child's perceptions around the experience.
Some of the problems that may be apparent are post traumatic stress responses for example:
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Anxiety
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Depression
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Hypervigilance
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Difficulties with being touched
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Easily agitated
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Nightmares or upsetting dreams
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Feelings of helplessness - becoming overly accommodating
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Difficulties with sex - either being overly sexualized (addictive sex used to cope with feelings) or lack of
interest or feelings of revulsion to sex
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Problems with trust within relationships
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Feelings of guilt that the individual "allowed" the abuse to continue exist
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It is extremely important to go at the individual's own pace so that the patient feels a good sense of trust
with the therapist. There is a need to work through the secrecy and feelings of betrayal of the family when
discussing the abuse. Another issue that should be addressed is that often in sexual abuse there is a feeling
of power and role reversal with the mother experienced by the daughter (or with the father if the patient is
a male). The abused individual may deeply resent due to the level of responsibility that goes along with
this role reversal. He or She may believe that the abuse either sexual or physical is their own fault. This is
an important feeling that the therapist can help them to eliminate.
Group Therapy as a Treatment of Social Difficulties or Issues:
The two most common issues that get in the way of connection with others are
communication and defensiveness. One of the biggest obstacles people have in
relationships is the ability to communicate their feelings, their likes, their dislikes,
and reactions that relate to any issues they may have. The second major
difficulty people have is that when people in our family or at work give feedback,
we tend to get defensive. This is because we feel we must justify our behavior.
It is very hard to just listen to others, and then decide whether or not to
incorporate their requests or feedback about our behavior.
While many people make headway on relationship issues through individual
therapy, group therapy is a more direct, and sometimes faster, way to work on
relationship problems. Group involves an "in vivo"(in the moment or 'live') way of
working on these issues.
Group Therapy:
Dr. Greenberg runs an ongoing group that focuses on relationship issues. The
members range in age from early thirties to early fifties. The group works on the
assumption that there are two central focuses for the all group members - a)
dealing with issues of trauma from childhood, and b) establishing and
maintaining close gratifying relationships with others, though each member
manifests his/her problems differently.
The therapy group is a special social laboratory where honest interpersonal
exploration with the other members is not only permitted, but encouraged. If
people are conflicted in the way they relate to others, then a social situation
which encourages honest, direct "at the time" feedback can provide them with a
clear opportunity to learn many valuable things about themselves.
A big contributing factor to difficulties in relationships is how you are affected by
other people's comments and reactions. Everyone can recognize the experience
of having someone else give you feedback that "maybe you just took what they
said wrong". It is often difficult to discern, whether others are acting in an
upsetting manner or whether you are reacting in a way that doesn't fit what the
other intended. Previous and current group members say the most important
thing they gain from their group experience is the ability to distinguish between
what is their "stuff "or (issues) and what is other people's "stuff".
The group that Dr. Greenberg runs is called a process-oriented group. This
means that the group focuses not only what is going on outside the group in the
members lives (present and past) but also on what is happening between the
members in the group at the moment. The way members can help themselves
most of all is to be honest and direct with each other at the moment (when you
feel whatever you feel in the group, say it) especially feelings toward other group
members and toward the therapist. This is the core of group therapy.
Group therapy provides a forum for risk-taking and trying out new types of
behavior. It is important that members recognize that this is probably the safest
medium in which they can experiment with change of attitude and action. The
group can tolerate this sort of experimentation and can provide feedback to the
member about how the new change is working. Group therapy provides a safe
place for allowing people comment on others expressions with a therapist
monitoring.
Often people wish that when others are sad or angry, they could understand that
the person is just going through something, or is simply "grumpy". Group therapy
helps people to recognize problems that cause reactions that are not their fault.
This ability not to over personalize experiences is something that most people
find group therapy helps with enormously. Not over personalizing is a skill that
allows people to better function at home when a spouse or a child is upset and
allows the individual to not "take it on". When you have this ability you can listen
to your friends and family members' feelings without being defensive – A skill that
is necessary for successful relationships. In group therapy, individuals learn to
tolerate other's emotions without having to "own" them or become hurt by their
expressions of feelings.
It is common to feel anxious about attending group therapy – to think about
sharing one's inner self with others can be somewhat daunting or scary.
However, once people start they often find that they bond strongly with the other
group members. Group tends to feel like a safe place to be to express feelings
and ask questions about other's thinking that you never could ask before.
A clinical psychologist in Los Altos, California, Dr. Greenberg's office
is easily accessible from most of the cities within the Silicon Valley /
Bay Area, including Los Altos, Los Altos Hills,
Mountain View,
Palo Alto,
Menlo Park,
Atherton,
Saratoga,
Sunnyvale,
Los Gatos,
Santa Clara,
and San Jose.
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