“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” -Carl Rogers
Is to help empower my clients to be their authentic selves and create the conditions to achieve their goals and live a purposeful, fulfilling life.
Understands their experiences without judgment, helps them clarify their inner experience, and empowers them to confidently create the life they desire.
The client continues the work outside our sessions. I help my clients uncover their innate wisdom of what they need, remove inner and outer roadblocks, and steer new habits in the right direction. But as a key part of a team, the client has the responsibility of implementing shifts outside our sessions for lasting change.
A support, trusting, nonjudgmental environment to explore your inner landscape and collaborate on defining goals and practical steps to reach them
Believing you have the answers you need inside yourself, and it is my job to help you find them and put them into practice. I can and will suggest and point out things, but ultimately I defer to your own innate wisdom, for your ability to listen to it and follow it is key for long-term positive change.
Working together to define specific, tangible goals and practical steps to meet them. As clients move toward them, I help them clarify roadblocks and setbacks in their various forms (thought distortions, limiting beliefs, traumatic memories, etc.) and work with them in a patient, nonjudgmental space to address and heal underlying causes.
High-achieving individuals who struggle to relax and whose motivations often come from unhealthy sources
Reducing the influence of the day-to-day thoughts and habits that keep clients “stuck,” replacing them with more balanced and fruitful habits for their goals and sense of fulfillment.
Encouraged, cared for, understood, appreciated, challenged, hopeful, and motivated
My balance between a contemplative, exploration-focused approach to therapy and a practical, goal-driven plan of habit-focused coaching.
Are motivated to change and to take personal responsibility as the most important agent of those changes, while at the same time willing to slow down and accept that positive change is a slow process that requires consistency and self-compassion.
My commitment to weightlifting and strength training and how many of the patterns that govern physical growth and improvement apply equally to the inner world as well. Weight training has shown me repeatedly how deeply connected the mind and body truly are.
I have been an avid traveler since my early 20s, and traveling has taught me that having too strict of a plan can get in the way of what is most important. A similar principle applies to creative writing and therapy: When we open ourselves up to exploration without too strict of a hold on how we THINK it should look, we equip ourselves to find inspiration we could never have planned.
To be more challenging to clients rather than simply mirroring and reflecting things back. This kind of challenge is not abrasive, and I encourage clients to reject my challenges if they don’t align. Ultimately, this kind of challenging is grounded in the fact that growth does not come from staying inside a comfort zone, but from being in and embracing a tolerable and healthy level of discomfort.
Playing guitar, lifting weights, traveling the world, seeing live music, watching and studying movies (big film nerd), talking philosophy, reading fiction, saunaing, enjoying the sunshine outside, laughing at comedy podcasts, spending quality time with friends and loved ones, board games, and writing stories.
In my interests and habits, I aim for a balance between structure and openness to explore. A tangible way in which this yin yang shows up is my dedication to both lifting weights and creative writing. Lifting weights and engaging in other forms of movement have informed my approach to therapy, making some of the abstractions of therapy tangible. For example, to make “gains” in the gym requires consistent dedication over the long haul. The same goes for therapy. Likewise, a workout plan with some structure helps foster a sense of forward momentum. While therapy veers more in this respect, I find that if it veers too haphazardly, clients typically arrive at a point of feeling frustrated at a lack of progress. Therapeutic progress is not always linear, but nevertheless some structure and touchpoints can help with motivation to continue. Lastly, both exercising and therapy call for a belief and trust in the process, where immediate gratification is deprioritized for the sake of long-term benefit. On the other end of the spectrum is creative writing. Some writers approach each story with a detailed outline, while others simply follow the story as it unfolds, thought by thought. I fall into the second category. For me, that is where inspiration lies. It’s the same with traveling: too strict of an itinerary diminishes my capacity for authentic wonder and following the directions where I feel moved. Similarly, if a session of therapy is too strictly attached to an idea of what either I or the client wants to happen, this attachment can block what needs to happen from coming through. I believe this balance supports a relaxed therapeutic environment that is also directional, allowing me to better serve my clients in reaching their goals.
I have long aspired to write and publish a novel. It’s a specific novel, in fact, and I’ve been working on it for over ten years (though I took about a 3 year break to write my nonfiction book). It combines elements from various genres, including urban fantasy, supernatural horror, psychological thriller, magical realism, and detective fiction. Some core inspirations on its content and style include Haruki Murakami, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Shirley Jackson, Agatha Christie, and the films of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, all sprinkled with a little Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code. I am on a quest to complete and publish it, and completing that will bring me a deep sense of satisfaction and relief.
Primary Credentials:
Licenses: Current: LPCC, CO
Additional Credentials:
Writing Psychedelic Revival: Toward a New Paradigm of Healing, published through Sounds True in June 2024. The book covers a vast amount of subjects on the complicated field, serving as both a wide-ranging introduction for people newly interested and a guidebook for practitioners who wish to deepen their knowledge to better serve their clients in working with non-ordinary states.
I am passionate about developing a new modality that incorporates resistance training and self-myofascial release (i.e. foam rolling) into the therapeutic process, a fusion of sorts between personal training and therapy. Too often, therapy can feel limiting in its chair-bound form, continuing to perpetuate a schism between the body and the mind. Trauma research has pivoted in recent years to focus on the body, particularly the nervous system, and I envision various strength- and flexibility-based practices that will help clients process the somatic trauma they hold in new ways and establish a more integrated functionality to their bodies that promotes confidence, authenticity, and rest.
Creating a structured program to low-dose ketamine-assisted therapy that uses ketamine less for a “trip” than to soften habitual defense mechanisms, helping clients practice emotional regulation as they touch into difficult emotions, memories, and other parts of themselves they typically keep inside. This approach incorporates both depth psychology and CBT, the latter of which is used to identify negative thought patterns (i.e. “mental habits”) and, with the aid of ketamine, disentangle one’s identity from them. This program has a beginning, middle, and an end, allowing clients the ability to measure progress through assessments and other metrics along the way. Rather than seeking the “big experience,” this low-dose approach to ketamine therapy focuses on making intentional, lasting positive change.
My book: Psychedelic Revival: Toward a New Paradigm of Healing
I appeared on several podcasts in support of my book, Psychedelic Revival, many of which can be found on the media page of my website.
