My background

As a proud social worker with both my Masters degree and Doctorate in Social Work, I take a holistic view towards mental wellness, observing the ways in which our biology, psychology, spirituality and social interactions inform how we feel about ourselves, others and the world around us.

While I am humble about my position on the web of intersectionality, I believe my lived experience as a white, cisgender gay male gives me some perspective on the societal power spectrum. Many of my clients come from the LGBTQ+ community, but I work equally well with clients across the gender and sexuality continuums.

I spent the first half of my career as a palliative care social worker, counseling seriously ill patients and their families as they confronted illness and mortality. While I didn’t plan it that way, my work in palliative care and in private practice have been mutually informative. Serious illness happens in the context of everyday life, and I found my conversations with sick patients focusing on day-to-day worries and dynamics just as often as they focused on death and dying. Similarly, because everyday life is marked by joy and stability as well as transition and loss, I often find myself using a grief framework to process the way in which my clients approach change and loss.

My philosophy

I believe that our past and present inform, but do not predict, our future. I believe that we can and must acknowledge pain at the same time that we recognize the choice we have in deciding what we wish to carry forward and what we wish to leave behind.

I believe in self compassion and self accountability in equal measure. I sit with clients in their pain, and I also help to keep them honest.

I believe in the search for self insight and self acceptance, but also developing practical tools for change.

I believe that the world can be cold and cruel, but that light eventually triumphs over darkness. I believe that bad things happen, but that we are ultimately responsible for deciding whether we will perpetuate our own suffering or allow ourselves to be unshackled from it.

I believe in finding humor even in the darkest corners of our closets. If we can still laugh, we’re doing okay.

I believe in the importance of hope and integrity, but also managing expectations and resentments so that we can flourish and find happiness with What Is rather than become lost in What Isn’t.

I believe in the concept of “Bothness”. In life we are inevitably confronted with conflicting, seemingly mutually exclusive facts, thoughts and feelings. I am grieving, and also relieved. I am flourishing, and also lonely. I have everything I ever wanted, and also feel stuck. Learning to acknowledge both realities, without getting lost in (or avoiding) one or the other, is what brings us peace.

I connect to clients on a human level, working together to find solutions to life's problems. I am an eclecticist, drawing from psychodynamic, CBT, mindfulness and systems theories, while maintaining a person-centered focus.