Matthew Pieknik, LCSW, MA

I come to this work from an unusual place: a background in literature and literary theory, and twenty years of teaching and counseling before I ever became a therapist. That means I listen quite differently from more behaviorally oriented therapists. Whether we are speaking face-to-face, or you are laying on the couch, as patients often do, I listen intently to how you speak, as well as to what speaks through you, outside of your awareness, and I support your efforts to say something about the unsayable, and to make use of it. I think of this as the practice of “full speech.” I also pay close attention to your dreams, your fantasies, and to the language you use, the verbal slips you make, the stories you tell about yourself, and the larger narratives — familial, generational, cultural, even unconscious — that have been shaping you long before you had a say in the matter.

Together, we co-author something new. Not by erasing your history, but by loosening its grip — finding the parts of the old story that were never really true, and uncovering resources you didn't know you had to build the life you actually want. Sexuality often has a central role in this work; it's rarely peripheral to who we are and who we're becoming, and I make room for it accordingly. I like to think of sexuality as our fundamental “unruliness,” the part of you that cannot be contained, and that is always seeking to disrupt, to break new ground, and to create the most singular, unique version of you. Often, when we’re able to embrace our unruliness, enjoy it, and learn how to work with it, it makes our lives immensely more satisfying.