Therapy Services

I work with young adults, middle adults, and elder adults — as individuals, couples, and families — who are seeking help for the quality of their emotional / relational life with a seasoned guide.

Practicing the art of psychotherapy is my vocation as sure as it is my profession. I am energized and deeply fulfilled by helping you make creative use of what life has thrown your way. 

Consultation  

After a brief phone call, the first step in our work together is to agree to meet – whether in-person or virtually – for one or two or three sessions. In this consultation, you’ll have a chance to share your story with me and your reason for seeking therapy. The act of speaking for yourself in private and with confidentiality is its own organizing step. I have the opportunity to learn about you and to determine whether and how I’ll be able to best serve you. Likewise, you’ll be learning about me and my way of being with, responding to, and guiding you. When we can laugh and cry and think freely and meaningfully together, we know we’re doing the work that can make the difference for you. 

Your true feelings are your superpower, as reflexively afraid or dismissive of them as others or you may be. The purpose of our consultation is to learn together what exactly is going on in your world as you think and feel about it, to begin to wonder about the sources of your most current experience, and to decide if committing to further exploration together is the right thing for us both to do. This work is an investment of time, money, and most importantly trust and courage – yours and mine.  

We are in search of the truth that makes you free and true and strong, the kind of knowing that ripple effects and benefits the whole of your world… whether we meet one time or more.    

Talk Therapy 

Ongoing talk therapy is your opportunity to discuss and work through past traumas, present struggles, and future goals, whether you’re seeking guidance as an individual, a couple, or as a family unit. I am here for you so that you can tell your truth out loud and think purposely with the steady hand of a skilled and empathic guide. 

My approach goes beyond advice and reassurance, as frustrating as that may feel at first. I offer you the space to engage in the essential conversations that you know you need to have, even when they are uncomfortable. As a healer, I meet you where you are, feel things as you feel them, see things as you see them, and help you deepen the understanding you have of yourself – alone and in relation with those who matter most.     

Therapy is not a crutch. But it can be a launch pad for the creative, energizing possibilities you have yet to conceive of for yourself. I provide a soft place you can count on while taking care of serious business. When you choose to commit to the work of therapy, you are taking a risk by dedicating yourself to an honest, utterly private, and unique dialogue. The kind of conversations you can only have in the presence of trust without judgement. The chance to be not-alone with the most private place within you, the source of your thoughts, feelings, motivations, choices, and decisions. 

We spend our entire lives becoming our true selves. I am here to galvanize — not obstruct — the natural process of your learning and growing as a person according to your real experience in life. No preconceived theory or technique or practitioner could ever know the meaning of things for you better than you do. 

Psychoanalysis 

Analysis is the most powerful opportunity for depth exploration of your inner world. It is the opportunity to go well beyond the personal story that you tell and to live knowing the truth of your soul.  

In the commitment to work in analysis, we agree to meet more frequently. This allows us to see your world from where you live it now – not in the past - and to make deep sense of conflicts, confusions, or mysteries that live within you. Like the benefits of meditation, analysis helps us rewire our mind/body chemistry and cut the path to wellness through unproductive thoughts and wasteful feelings. Unlike meditation, you are not alone in the process. I am there to interact with and guide you every step of the way. You have the power to find meaning in your life experience, and the superpower to make it a transformational journey that you’re genuinely grateful to live.  

Clinical Consultation & Supervision 

Faith and trust in the work of psychotherapy and analysis begins in the mind and heart of the therapist.  The work of listening freely and helpfully for our clients / patients means listening purposefully, courageously, and honestly within ourselves. 

In my schooling I began with the study of existential, client centered, and family systems theories in the 1980’s. Over time and with experience in practice, I gravitated to the study of object relational and psychoanalytic theories, theories that I find help us hold the mysteries unfolding before us in our clinical work without prematurely assigning meaning. As I see it, we are always working with shifting blends of individual, parental couple, and multigenerational family groups depending on where we are in the work with the client/patient. The agility to think about depth developmental meaning along with ongoing real-life relationships is a gymnastic of mind and heart that we can only learn from our own experience in the trenches and with trusted support friends and colleagues. 

I work with talk therapists at all levels of experience to deepen and strengthen the practice of radical self-care and to continue developing capacities for empathy, curiosity, compassion, containment, and confidence with intervention. 

FAQs

  • Psychotherapy, in the way I practice it, is a form of healthcare treatment dedicated to relieving and converting personal distress into meaning that sticks, frees and empowers. We do this by using the human-to-human therapeutic relationship between us.

  • We make space for you to tell me what is causing you concern and curiosity, if not pain and suffering, in your own way and in your own words. I listen deeply then give you feedback on how I make sense of what you are telling me. Together we think about what would best serve your needs and plan from there.

  • A single session may be all that is necessary or desirable to have. We may choose to extend the consultation for a few more meetings, to take our time thinking together about what would best serve. Then we decide whether and how to continue, committing to a minimum of once per week or more depending on your needs and desires.

  • Sessions are 60 minutes for our original consultation, 45 minutes for ongoing individual meetings and 60 minutes for ongoing couples, family, and homebound sessions.

  • I am available to meet in person in my office in Cape Neddick Maine, by Zoom, by Facetime, or by telephone – whatever means that is secure and allows us to do our work together. I am also available for home visits for older adults and/ or their families who are homebound within 20 miles or so of Ogunquit, Maine.

  • My approach goes beyond advice. I offer you the space to engage in the essential conversations that you know you need to have, even if uncomfortable. As a healer, I meet you where you are, feel things as you feel them, see things as you see them, and offer guidance for fresh insights and perspectives.

  • I do not participate in private insurance plans; I do provide you with a statement which includes information required for insurance reimbursement if you wish to file that on your own.

  • The fee for the original consultation is $250, and ongoing session fees are decided between us if and when we decide to work together.

  • I accept cash, check or payment electronically by Venmo or Zelle.

  • i don’t hold sessions by evening or weekend.

Testimonials

“Dr. Dunn has been incredibly helpful for me… her insights, persistence, and experience helped me cut through many years of passed over / passed by emotions. Her conversational style helped me not feel threatened by the idea of therapy and in the end, I feel that I was able to approach situations with a new outlook thanks to her skill and efforts.”

— Former Patient

“As a teacher and a supervisor I had the privilege of getting to know Eileen during her education to become a psychoanalyst. Throughout our years working together, her understanding of the importance of the personal relationship between her and her patients and her consistent empathic presence were always apparent. Especially noteworthy was her deep appreciation of the centrality of spirituality for many of her patients. Thoughtful, effortlessly present, and unobtrusively insightful, she was able to work productively with a range of individuals. The state of Maine is fortunate that she has relocated there.”

— David I. Joseph, M.D.
Supervising and Training Analyst
Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis

“Eileen is an artful clinician and a dear and trusted friend and colleague of mine. She believes wholeheartedly in the power of the therapeutic relationship and is always seeking authentically within herself and with her patients.”

— Gloria Myers Beller, LCSW
private practice, Washington, D.C.