“CBT-I is a structured, evidence-based program that addresses the thoughts and behaviors that cause or worsen insomnia. Unlike medication, which temporarily masks symptoms, CBT-I gets to the root of the problem and teaches you to sleep naturally again.”
With Integrated Spiritual Care & Trauma-Informed Approach
Sleep Better Without Medication: The Gold Standard Treatment for Insomnia—With Soul
You’re Exhausted. You’re Frustrated. You Just Want to Sleep.
I get it. You’re lying awake at 2 a.m., watching the clock, calculating how many hours of sleep you’ll get if you fall asleep right now. You’re exhausted during the day but wired at night. You’ve tried everything—every app, every supplement, every tip you’ve found on the internet. Nothing works.
Maybe your doctor prescribed sleeping pills, and they helped for a while, but now they’re not working as well, or you hate being dependent on them. Maybe you’re afraid you’ll never sleep normally again.
I want you to know: You can sleep again. And you don’t need medication to do it.
If you’ve been struggling with insomnia, you’ve probably tried everything—melatonin, sleep apps, white noise machines, maybe even prescription sleep medications. But here’s what most people don’t know: there’s a treatment for insomnia that’s more effective than medication, has no side effects, and creates lasting change. It’s called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, or CBT-I.
As both a psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine and a rabbi, I bring a unique perspective to sleep treatment. I’ve helped hundreds of people overcome chronic insomnia by addressing not just the behavioral and cognitive aspects of sleep, but also the spiritual and emotional dimensions that traditional sleep medicine often overlooks.
CBT-I is a structured, evidence-based program that addresses the thoughts and behaviors that cause or worsen insomnia. Unlike medication, which temporarily masks symptoms, CBT-I gets to the root of the problem and teaches you to sleep naturally again.
Sleep restriction therapy: Consolidating your sleep by temporarily limiting time in bed (sounds counterintuitive, but it works)
Stimulus control: Re-training your brain to associate bed with sleep, not wakefulness
Cognitive restructuring: Changing anxious thoughts about sleep that keep you awake
Sleep hygiene education: Optimizing your environment and habits for better sleep
Relaxation techniques: Reducing physiological and mental arousal that interferes with sleep
Sleep is not just a biological process—it’s also deeply connected to how we experience safety, surrender, and trust. Many people with chronic insomnia struggle not just with racing thoughts, but with deeper questions: Why can’t I let go? Why don’t I feel safe enough to rest? What am I afraid will happen if I’m not vigilant?
As a rabbi and psychologist, I understand that insomnia is often about more than sleep hygiene.
Many of my clients discover that their insomnia is connected to:
Difficulty surrendering control: The need to monitor everything, to stay on top of everything, to never let your guard down. Sleep requires the opposite—letting go, trusting that the world will keep turning without you. In Jewish tradition, rest isn’t something you earn—it’s something you’re commanded to do. Shabbat teaches us that stopping isn’t laziness; it’s essential to being human. Sleep is the nightly Shabbat, a daily practice of surrender and trust.
Fear of vulnerability: Sleep is the ultimate vulnerability. You’re unconscious, undefended, not in control. For people who don’t feel safe—especially trauma survivors—sleep can feel dangerous.
Guilt about rest: Especially in our productivity-obsessed culture, rest can feel like laziness or failure. We’ll work on reclaiming rest as your right, not something you have to earn.
Existential anxiety: Sometimes lying awake at night brings up big questions—about meaning, mortality, regret, the future. We’ll create space for those questions and find ways to address them that don’t involve staying awake all night.
I integrate spiritual perspectives—from Jewish tradition and beyond—only in ways that feel authentic and helpful to you. For example, the Bedtime Shema, an ancient Jewish prayer practice, is essentially a 3,000-year-old sleep hygiene protocol that combines breath work, cognitive reframing, and spiritual surrender. Whether or not you’re religious, these timeless principles about rest, trust, and letting go can be profoundly healing.
You don’t need to be Jewish—or religious at all—to benefit from these insights. Universal principles about rest, trust, and surrender transcend any single tradition. I meet you where you are spiritually and integrate these perspectives only in ways that resonate with you.
For many people, especially those with trauma histories, insomnia isn’t just about learned associations or poor sleep habits. It’s about a nervous system that doesn’t feel safe enough to rest.
If you’ve experienced trauma—whether childhood trauma, military combat, sexual assault, medical trauma, domestic violence, or other overwhelming experiences—your hypervigilance at night makes perfect evolutionary sense. Your nervous system learned that sleep equals danger, that letting your guard down isn’t safe.
Traditional CBT-I protocols can be retraumatizing if not adapted for trauma survivors. For example, standard sleep restriction can feel punishing and triggering. Lying in bed awake can activate feelings of helplessness reminiscent of the trauma.
Pacing interventions carefully: We don’t jump straight into aggressive sleep restriction. We build safety and tolerance gradually. If something feels retraumatizing, we adjust our approach.
Prioritizing felt safety: Before we work on sleep efficiency, we work on creating conditions where your body feels safe enough to sleep. This might involve environmental modifications (nightlights, door positioning, weighted blankets), safety planning for panic that arises at night, or addressing nighttime hypervigilance with grounding techniques.
Addressing nightmares directly: If trauma-related nightmares are part of your insomnia—and they often are—we integrate evidence-based nightmare treatment. Using Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT), you’ll learn to rewrite your nightmares in less terrifying ways and rehearse the new versions. This significantly reduces nightmare frequency and intensity, often within just a few weeks. Many trauma survivors avoid sleep specifically because they dread the nightmares; treating the nightmares directly removes that barrier to rest.
Recognizing dissociation: Some trauma survivors dissociate rather than sleep, or experience fragmented sleep that doesn’t feel restorative. We address this directly through grounding techniques and body-based interventions that help you stay present and connected.
Working with your nervous system, not against it: We don’t shame hypervigilance—we acknowledge it as a protective response that once kept you safe. Then we gently help your system learn that it’s safe to rest now. This might include somatic approaches like trauma-sensitive progressive muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing adapted for trauma survivors, or gentle body awareness practices.
Validating your experience: Your hypervigilance isn’t irrational—it’s your nervous system’s brilliant attempt to protect you. We honor that while helping your body learn: the danger has passed. It’s safe to rest now.
Collaborating with your trauma therapist: If you’re already in trauma therapy (EMDR, CPT, Prolonged Exposure, Somatic Experiencing, etc.), I coordinate care to ensure our work complements rather than conflicts with your trauma treatment. Sleep work and trauma work are powerfully synergistic—as you sleep better, you’re more emotionally regulated for trauma processing, and as you process trauma, your nervous system calms and sleep improves.
CBT-I produces longer-lasting results than medication, with benefits that continue long after treatment ends. Studies consistently show 70-80% of people with chronic insomnia significantly improve with CBT-I, and the benefits are maintained years later.
When CBT-I is adapted to address spiritual and trauma-related dimensions of sleep disturbance, outcomes are even stronger because we’re treating the whole person, not just the sleep symptoms. Research on trauma-informed CBT-I shows it’s highly effective when standard protocols are modified to address hypervigilance, nightmares, safety concerns, and the need for pacing.
And for those struggling with existential or spiritual dimensions of sleep—questions about control, trust, surrender, and safety—addressing these deeper layers often unlocks healing that behavioral interventions alone cannot achieve.
While some people’s sleep improves dramatically after one or two sessions, for most people treatment is typically 6-8 sessions for standard insomnia, sometimes 8-12 sessions if we’re also addressing trauma or complex spiritual/existential dimensions.
In our first session, we’ll discuss your sleep history, but also your life—what’s happening, what you’re carrying, what keeps you up at night beyond just not being able to fall asleep. We’ll explore whether trauma, spiritual questions, or existential concerns are part of your sleep struggle.
Throughout treatment, we’ll track your sleep with daily diaries, implement behavioral interventions systematically, challenge anxious thoughts about sleep, and build skills you’ll use for the rest of your life.
We’ll also integrate (if you’re open to it) spiritual practices that support rest and surrender—whether that’s the Bedtime Shema, mindfulness meditation, gratitude practices, or simply exploring your beliefs about control and trust.
If nightmares are a problem, we’ll dedicate specific sessions to Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, which has strong research support and often provides relief within 2-4 weeks.
If trauma is part of your story, we’ll pace everything carefully, prioritize safety, and coordinate with your other providers as needed.
Most people see significant improvement within 2-4 weeks. By the end of treatment, you’ll have not just better sleep, but a transformed relationship with rest—one that honors both your body’s need for sleep and your soul’s need for safety, surrender, and peace.
This approach is especially beneficial for:
You deserve rest. Not because you’ve earned it or been productive enough or solved all your problems. You deserve rest simply because you’re human, because rest is a biological necessity and a spiritual practice, because your body and soul need the nightly renewal that only sleep can provide.
Whether your insomnia is behavioral, cognitive, trauma-related, spiritually rooted, or some combination of all of these, there is a path forward. CBT-I works. And when we address the deeper dimensions—the questions of safety, trust, control, and surrender—healing becomes not just possible, but profound.
Stop managing insomnia. Heal it—body, mind, and spirit.
I struggled with insomnia for fifteen years. I tried everything—melatonin, sleep apps, prescription medications. Nothing created lasting change.
Dr. Forman's CBT-I was different. He explained the science clearly and created a structured treatment plan tailored to me. We worked on sleep restriction, challenging my anxious thoughts about sleep, and relaxation techniques.
What surprised me was that he also addressed my relationship with rest itself. As both a psychologist and rabbi, he helped me understand that some of my insomnia was tied to feeling I didn't 'deserve' rest unless I'd been productive enough. That perspective really shifted something for me.
By session three, I was already sleeping better. By session six, I was consistently sleeping 7-8 hours a night. It's been six months and I'm still sleeping well. After fifteen years of struggling, I finally feel like myself again.
Laura M., Tampa, FL
"I took Ambien every night for ten years. I hated being dependent on it, but every time I tried to stop on my own, I couldn't sleep at all and had to go right back on it.
My new primary care doctor, Dr. Sarah Chen, referred me to Dr. Forman and said, 'He can help you sleep naturally again and get off the medication safely.' I'm so grateful she did.
Dr. Forman created a careful taper schedule while simultaneously teaching me CBT-I techniques—sleep restriction, stimulus control, challenging my anxious thoughts about sleep, and relaxation techniques. He monitored my progress weekly and adjusted the taper speed based on how I was doing.
The taper took about three months. There were a few difficult nights, but Dr. Forman gave me tools to get through them without panicking or reaching for the pill bottle.
What helped beyond just the behavioral techniques was Dr. Forman's perspective on rest and trust. As both a psychologist and rabbi, he helped me understand that I'd stopped trusting my own body. We worked on rebuilding that trust.
By session eight, I was completely off Ambien and sleeping 7 hours naturally. Two months later, I'm still sleeping well without medication. I wake up actually refreshed, not groggy like on Ambien.
At 67, I'm sleeping better than I have in twenty years. Thank you, Dr. Chen, for the referral, and thank you, Dr. Forman, for giving me back my natural sleep and my independence.
Richard G., Joplin, MO
After my assault, I couldn't sleep. The nightmares were constant, and I was terrified to close my eyes. I was exhausted but sleep felt dangerous.
Dr. Forman's trauma-informed approach was exactly what I needed. He validated that my hypervigilance made sense and never pushed me. We addressed my nightmares directly using Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, and within two weeks they decreased dramatically.
We also worked on making my bedroom feel safer and calming my nervous system. Dr. Forman coordinated with my trauma therapist, which was really helpful.
By session six, I was consistently getting 6-7 hours of sleep. The nightmares happen maybe once or twice a month now instead of every night. I'm sleeping again and not afraid to go to bed anymore. That's huge.
Anonymous
Ancient wisdom meets modern science. Transform your nights, awaken your days
