Individual therapy can take many forms. My approach is carefully integrative, and it leans predominantly on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic therapy.

CBT attends to the relationship between thoughts/ideas, emotions, and behaviors. Often we notice a strong, unwelcome emotion but fail to notice the idea that sparked the emotion. On the other hand, we often fail to notice how our actions have their own effect on our emotions. CBT then welcomes us into both healthier behaviors and more realistic and helpful thinking so that we can disrupt the cycle of unhealthy thinking, feeling, and living.

Psychodynamic therapy attends to unconscious desires and drives as well as to the ways we are formed by our early relationship patterns and relational disruptions or traumas. This can help us notice the ways we continue to carry these patterns, fears, expectations, and desires with us into the present and our current relationships.

Intimate relationship can be among the most rewarding yet most painful aspects of modern life. If your marriage, engagement, or partnership needs help, you have come to the right place. Couple’s therapy treats the relationship itself as the client in need of healing and care. My approach therapy emphasizes authenticity, empathy, and healthy communication.

Authenticity is two partners presenting their true selves to one another in honest, vulnerable mutuality. Is it risky and often takes courage, particularly after extended time hiding from one another or presenting a false self builds up callouses. However, love can only happen in that courageous authenticity.

Empathy involves genuine interest in one another’s experiences and perspective. This often calls for a non-defensive, childlike curiosity about one another. The real work often lies in the “non-defensive” aspect of communication. Defensiveness immediately derails empathy.

Finally, healthy communication is the work of active listening, checking in with one another about each believes to have heard from the other, and sharing one’s own perspective in “I” oriented language. For instance, couple’s therapy moves communication from “You’re just pissing me off again. I’m sick of it and getting out of here.” It moves toward, “I feel angry right now and think a little break would help me avoid saying something I might regret.”

The teenage years are known for their turbulence and emotional volatility. However, teens are often underestimated for their energy, creativity, insight, vision, and - yes - vivacity. Teens are in a crucial stage, one marked by significant physical, social, sexual, and cognitive transformation. Teens need levels of support that are both hard to overestimate and challenging to provide. Therapy that takes their particular strengths, vulnerabilities, and developmental stage into account can be crucial for many teens.

Importantly, teens also require real confidentiality in their therapy. I strive to balance parents’ concerns and legal rights with teens’ need for privacy and genuine confidentiality. I am clear with both parents and teens about the limits of teenage confidentiality, the fact of parental legal rights, and the crucial role of parental trust in the process.

Parents, know that I am committed to your teens’ well-being and will always let you know if I have reason to believe their safety is at risk. Teens, know that I strive to set clear boundaries with your parents to protect your confidentiality and respect the privacy of our therapeutic relationship.

Group therapy can be an excellent way to engage the therapeutic process in the context of peer-oriented relationships. One of the often unspoken benefits of the therapeutic relationship itself is that we inevitably reproduce our relational tendencies within that context. Group therapy often attends to this more explicitly than individual, and the group format can bring this out more tangibly.

With an experienced therapist helping set clear boundaries, foster healthy communication, and nurture opportunities for insight, group therapy offers a potentially transformative and deeply relational approach to therapy. The support and insight of others in the group often tends to build a momentum and sense of group cohesion that draws the entire group along.

Please reach out if you are interested in groups related to men and masculinity, anxiety, depression, trauma, or grief and loss.

Please reach out if you are interested in services beyond the strictly therapeutic. I am experienced in preaching, teaching, and public speaking as well as lecturing on academic subjects. Psychological perspectives and consultation can also be valuable in the context of business and leadership, fostering insight into systems, professional relationships, and work dynamics.

If you wonder whether my expertise and experience would be helpful to your church from the pulpit or in a more conversational Sunday school or evening workshop format, please reach out!

If you suspect that your business could benefit from a workshop on communication or leadership styles, let’s talk!

If you would like to have me share with your student group or other organization, I would be delighted to share what I can.

In each case, my commitment is to clear dialogue with you about your needs and my capacities, clear commitments on pricing, and excellence in preparation and delivery.

However you imagine my services fitting into your context, I look forward to connecting!