Services
About My Clients
I specialize in helping individuals and couples navigate difficult life situations and major transitions. Often these situations are exacerbated by difficulties in emotion regulation, including depression, anxiety, or anger, as well as unhelpful patterns, such as substance and behavioral addictions and relationship problems. Men, in particular, may find it hard to discuss these struggles, feeling pressure to handle everything alone. If this resonates, you're not alone.
My Background and Approach
My clinical orientation is rooted in interpersonal neurobiology, a framework that emphasizes the interconnectedness of the brain, mind, and relationships. Within this framework, I utilize several interrelated interventions. These include mindfulness, attachment, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), trauma-informed care, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Throughout over a decade of work, culminating as director and clinical supervisor at a community mental health agency, I’ve had the opportunity to witness the transformative effects of mindfulness—acceptance, non-judgment, concentration, and compassion for self and others—across a spectrum of clients in moments of crisis and despair. These include combat vets suffering from wartime trauma, people struggling with severe mental illness and addiction, and houseless and formerly incarcerated individuals as they struggle to repair themselves and their relationships and find purpose and meaning in their lives.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
For me, mindfulness practice, and its underlying Eastern philosophical tradition, provides an understanding of the mind and the causes of suffering that is often lacking in Western medical models of treatment. It also happens to align with current scientific insights and the most recent neurobiological research. Additionally, mindfulness provides the tools—available to anyone—which, when practiced regularly, can alter our neural circuitry and positively change our experience of ourselves, our lives, and the world. Regular mindfulness practice remains a touchstone in my daily life and my therapy practice. And not surprisingly, I find other interventions that incorporate mindfulness or its philosophical-psychological framework, often in conjunction with cognitive behavioral approaches, particularly useful in addressing certain mental health challenges. In between juggling work and family life, I enjoy yoga, climbing, travel, and hiking with Sansa, our intensely loyal rescue dog.