About

Teaching and coaching are strong passions of mine. Becoming a therapist provided me with the opportunity to do both. My journey to becoming a therapist was not linear. It started during a personal training session with one of my clients years ago. She started to open up about her life and began to cry. Aside from the empathetic ear, I felt like I didn’t have the skillset to help her. After talking to different individuals in the helping professions, I learned that counseling is what I was looking for. At one time in my life I wanted to be a physical therapist to aid people in restoring something they lost. As a psychotherapist I learned I could still help with restoration in addition to helping clients cultivate something they may have never had.

The impact of systems and environmental failures are often overlooked when clients are assessing how they got to where they are in life. This oversight of factors beyond the individual often results in a sense of shame that is both valid and unjustified. I work with individuals who have experienced trauma, are struggling with depression or anxiety, and those who struggle with relationships -whether it's with others or themselves. I also work with individuals experiencing suicidality or engaging in self-injurious behavior. The therapeutic process can be compared to an excavation site where the client is an archeologist. We see something on the surface that suggests there is something underneath. We dig and explore to see what is there while carefully examining what we discover on the way.

Those who work with me can expect collaboration coupled with considerate care. One thing that stood out to me in my DBT training was the principle of the customer and the mechanic. We don't see the mechanic as being superior just because they have the skills needed for fixing the car. The same can be said for the therapeutic relationship. I happen to have a skillset that I get to share with clients as they make repairs and alterations to their lives. I was doing trauma work with a client and she used a metaphor that I liked for our relationship. "Richard, you're like the teacher in driver's ed. I get to determine where the car is going and you get to use the brakes when I'm moving too quickly". My collaboration comes with responsibility to my clients. We can get to where you want and I want us to arrive safely. One of the most caring things I can do is challenge my clients when appropriate. I ask clients to leverage their trust in me and the trust they're cultivating for themselves as we approach topics that have kept them stuck for some time.