My background and my approach to therapy

While the point of therapy is to focus on you, I also believe that you have the right to know a bit about where I’m coming from and how I work with people.

My Background

I’m a white, transgender man married to a queer woman of color, and these experiences have made me particularly conscious of how factors like gender, race and affectional orientation impact our experiences in society.

Before becoming a counselor, I worked in education for 15 years, first as a classroom teacher (I taught middle- and high-school science in a wide variety of settings) and later as an education researcher and college professor. My work focused on inequality - particularly racial inequality - and how systems of education create and perpetuate unequal opportunities for students of color.

Throughout that time, I had the privilege of working with and learning from a diverse array of youth in settings ranging from college classrooms to public schools. The most meaningful part of my work was always getting to know and support these young people. My desire to make that type of individual support the center of my professional life was what led me to become a counselor.

As a trans man, my personal experience offers me a glimpse into the particular struggles and resilience of our community. I hope to support others as you navigate your own challenges, find your own joys and deepen your sense of self. 

My Approach to Counseling

My approach to counseling emphasizes the importance of early attachment experiences and trauma, both of which have a profound impact on our ability to regulate our emotions, have relationships with others, and feel good about ourselves. I also think broadly about how our identities (race, gender, etc.) impact how we understand ourselves and how others treat us.

The foundation of my work with clients draws from person-centered and emotionally focused approaches. I believe that you are the expert on your own life and that you have an innate capacity to heal, grow, overcome challenges and find the solutions that are right for you. However, experiences of trauma, insecure attachment and/or oppression often interrupt that capacity by teaching us to hide or completely shut down parts of ourselves. I view my job as supporting you in reconnecting with yourself. In practice, this means cultivating an authentic relationship in which you feel seen and accepted, and thus safe to experience and express parts of yourself or your experience that you may have been avoiding.

That said, sometimes you need more specific types of guidance or intervention. For example, you might have a lot of insight into your struggles but find it really difficult to make progress because your emotional responses are so powerful or overwhelming. In these situations, I use two complementary approaches: I draw on techniques from Dialectical Behavior Therapy to support clients in managing dysregulation, and I also use Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to heal the wounds that are causing overwhelming responses in the first place. EMDR essentially “unsticks” painful memories and experiences, releasing the emotional pain associated with them and helping us make connections to our adult wisdom and perspective.

A Note for BIPOC Clients

For any clients who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or otherwise as a person of color, and who are wondering about working with me as a white therapist:

If you are a person of color, it might feel important or even necessary to work with a therapist who shares your racial, cultural or ethnic background, or who at least shares the experience of being racially marginalized. If that’s what you’re looking for and you’d like help finding that person, feel free to contact me — I’ll do what I can to point you in the right direction.

Alternatively, you might not care one way or the other about your therapist’s racial/cultural identity. Or if you do want a therapist with a particular background, you might be unable to find one, or they might not have openings, or they might not be familiar with issues of gender or sexuality.

While I cannot offer you a shared lived experience, I can at least assure you that I will neither totally ignore nor awkwardly focus on your particular racial or cultural background — you are free to bring it into our sessions as much or as little as you would like. And if race and culture are important to you, I can assure you that their significance isn’t going to come as a surprise to me, that I’m not going to react with subtle skepticism or discomfort if you describe encountering racism, and that I’m not going to impose my own ideas about your culture.