How I Became the Therapist I am Today

After completing graduate school several years ago and starting to see clients, I noticed that my female clients kept on telling me how surprised they were that I listened to them, and how they felt comfortable talking with me. Some of them even told me I was the first man who had treated them respectfully.

I didn't set out to specialize in women's mental health. I didn’t have any specific experience working with women, and I didn’t have any plans on specializing in helping women. But as I saw more and more female clients, I started noticing patterns - the way childhood experiences shaped their relationships, how they carried anxiety differently, and the specific ways trauma showed up in their lives. That's when my career shifted, and I began focusing specifically on the issues my female clients were navigating.

As I began to learn more about the struggles of the women I was working with, I saw how so many of them were constantly criticizing themselves in their head and comparing themselves to others. Guilt and anxiety were constant companions in their day-to-day life.

I saw how hard they worked to not have to think about the things they had been through. For so many of them, staying asleep throughout the night and waking up feeling rested almost never happened.

I saw how hard it was for them to trust and open up to others, and how alone and empty they felt. They cared deeply about others, but for some reason people didn’t seem to care about them the same way.

And I saw how they kept on ending up in romantic relationships that only left them feeling more hurt than before. They felt confused and scared to date someone else, and they constantly wondered if they were making the right decisions.

However, They Felt Stuck…..

They all wanted to change the way they felt, but most therapists they had seen were only teaching them coping skills, which wasn’t cutting it. Learning to cope is great, but it’s just a temporary solution. Coping doesn’t heal the pain, help you feel better about yourself, or help you maintain a healthy relationship.

What they really needed was to be able to process and heal from the experiences that were driving their anxiety, depression, and relationship struggles in the first place. They needed to heal childhood trauma and emotional neglect, betrayal, and years of not feeling loved, heard from, or valued.

Throughout my life and career I’ve seen how women are often dismissed, minimized, or hurt by the men they should be able to trust. Seeing the real toll this takes made me committed to providing something different so that my female clients could experience genuine respect and validation.

I realized that if I was really going to help these women, I couldn't just use the same types of approaches other therapists were using. I needed to learn how to help these women heal in a way that would make them feel safe in their bodies and relationships.

To do this, I embarked on several years of intense training, in which I flew around the country, receiving training from the top experts in the field. Several years later when the dust had settled and I had completed all my advanced training, I now had the knowledge to help my clients properly heal.

What Makes Therapy With Me Different

What makes me different from other therapists is that I don’t just teach my clients coping skills. Using EMDR, somatic therapy, Internal Family Systems, and attachment-based approaches, we address the root causes of your pain—not just manage the symptoms. My focus is on transforming the patterns that keep you stuck, so you can experience genuine healing

Something else that makes me different from other therapists is that while other therapists work with all kinds of people, I specialize in working with young adult women. Being able to deeply understand my clients helps me provide the most effective results in therapy.

No matter what you’ve been through, I promise you that you can live your life without those memories clinging onto your every move or thought. You can have solid healthy friendships and relationships where you feel respected and heard. And you can go about your life without having that crushing feeling of guilt and worry with you all the time.

Wondering how can I be so sure? It’s simple. I’ve witnessed hundreds of my clients heal with my own eyes. I’ve listened as clients shared how impossible it has felt to leave a toxic relationship and how uncomfortable they get when receiving compliments from others.

I’ve sat with clients who constantly felt on edge, and told me they could never feel comfortable around a man. I’ve heard clients tell me how they feel like no one can truly love them, and that there’s just something really wrong with them. By the end of therapy with me, things are so different for them. These same clients share how, for the first time in forever, they feel light and happy in their hearts. Finally, they feel free.

Now it’s your turn. You deserve to get the help you’ve been waiting for.

How I Can Help You

One of my greatest beliefs is that we can still be healthy and live our best lives despite going through difficult times. The core of all my training is about how to help people feel differently, by getting to the root of why people struggle today.

I am passionate about being able to provide the most up to date treatment for my clients, and I am constantly learning about the different ways that I can help the people I work with. My commitment is to help you feel as good as possible, as quickly as possible.

I am trained in pretty much every type of trauma therapy that’s out there, and that includes specialized forms of therapy such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and psychodrama.

I also heavily use Attachment Theory in my work with clients. Attachment theory helps us understand why you may feel guarded around other people, why you keep on ending up with the same type of men, why you feel so alone, or why you worry about people rejecting you.

What Therapy with Me Looks Like

I tend to be more structured and focus on what goals you want to achieve in therapy, and I work off of that. At the beginning of each session, I’ll offer you several choices of things we can work on that day, and of course we can always work on something that’s been on your mind.

During our session, I will ask questions and provide feedback – I’m not a fan of sitting and nodding my head the whole time you talk. I also don’t believe therapy is just a venting session, so our conversation usually includes some discussion of how we might see things from a different perspective, as well as other practical ways to feel differently.

At the end of each session, I’ll check in with you about how things went, including what was helpful and what wasn’t helpful. I never take our sessions for granted, and I’m always trying to make our work even more effective.

The Basics

There are a couple of basic ideas that are foundational to me:

1 – There’s no such thing as TMI. Money, relationships, weird thoughts you’re having…. everything is completely okay to talk about in our sessions. There’s nothing that’s off the table for discussion.

2 – You’re not too much for me (or anyone else for that matter). You’re not going to overwhelm me, and I promise you I will never be scared or thrown off by what you share with me. You also don’t have to worry about weighing me down with your stuff – us therapists are trained to hear people’s pain without negatively being affected by it.

3 - There’s also no need to apologize for anything you say or do. I fully accept everyone the way they are. 

I’m Not Sure I Want To See A Male Therapist….

I get it. For some of my clients it’s hard for them to consider seeing a male therapist. After all, men are the ones who have often hurt them, whether physically, emotionally, or sexually. Why would they want to work with a man when they are trying to recover and feel better?

While it may be different talking to a man than a woman, having a male therapist can actually help you heal even more than working with a female therapist. This is especially true if in your past you have had a man hurt you in any way. Having a safe, appropriate, and respectful connection with a male therapist can help you see men differently, and allow you to work through your fears and mistaken beliefs about men.

Outside of counseling…

I enjoy spending time with my wife and kids, and doing family activities together. I love traveling, especially to the Western United States and all the great national parks that we have. I also love learning about other cultures and have had amazing experiences in Japan and other parts of Asia. When I’m not traveling, I stay active by playing basketball and volleyball, and playing the occasional video game. 

Reach out today

Schedule your free consultation now by clicking on the button below. We’ll chat for 15 minutes so you can get a sense of who I am and how I can help you. You can also contact me by email, or calling or texting me at 513-400-4613.