Services
About My Clients
When facing life’s difficult problems, you don't have to go it alone. I am a relational therapist, meaning healing & growth happen in the context of a caring, compassionate, supportive and authentic therapeutic relationship. I am a clinical supervisor, support group facilitator, and educator with a 30-year career dedicated to companioning individuals & families impacted by cancer, caregiver strain, loss & grief, and life transitions, "urban loneliness," trauma & foster/special-needs parenting.
My Background and Approach
Illness & trauma often upend one's life & can disrupt an entire family. No one need move through major loss & life transitions lost and alone. We collaborate to make adjustments, restore forgotten strengths, find preferred living & directions forward. Master of Social Work degree; Proud clinical social worker. SW core values: service, social justice, dignity & worth of persons, integrity, competence. Mindfulness & oncology certifications. My respectful style ensures that people are situated as experts in their own lives & holds that “The problem is the problem. The person is not the problem.” (Michael White, 1989, Narrative Therapy co-creator) With co-created perspectives (restoring forgotten knowledges & wisdoms individuals & families already possess), authentic compassion & dignifying curiosity, and dedication to excellent therapeutic care & professional growth, I am here for you & share your desire for ease, clarity, support, adjustment, growth, insights, restoration & renewal.
My Personal Beliefs and Interests
Life is lived in intersecting local (personal/familial), community, institutional & societal cultures & discourses. Identifying the multiple internal & external influences on identity, agency, power & privilege we operate under is essential when standing up to problems, revitalizing existing strengths & recruiting new, needed supports. Individuals & families benefit from sharing their stories specifically about problems & ALSO broadly about strengths, who they are, their lives, remembered & forgotten histories, knowledges, identities & wisdoms. Our work facilitates clarity, adjustment, re-storying, empowerment & deepening self-understanding while centralizing your personal knowledges & preferred values-based living. Black lives matter. As a white man, I am working to unlearn anti-Black influences & subvert white supremacist systems. I stand for pro-Black, anti-racist ideals. As a gay man, I know oppression. I listen for oppression (LGBTQ+, religious, gender...) Therapy can be fun too!