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Welcome. I can help you move toward the life you want.

People often have difficulty doing what they want to do. Distressing emotions, thoughts, memories, sensations, and plain old habit push us toward actions that do not reflect our values or our goals. I work with people to improve their focus on what is important to them and overcome whatever barriers keep them from moving in that direction.

I use empirically-supported treatments - treatments that have been proven to work. These generally focus on how our thinking, feeling, and behavior influence one another. Therapy is active, present-focused, and challenging. If you are tired of your thoughts and feelings running your life, I would be happy to help you regain control of your life.

I have successfully helped many people overcome various psychological challenges to begin living the life they want, including:

The most important factor in therapy working is the relationship between you and your therapist. My orientation in therapy is based on:

  • Acceptance

  • Validation

  • Encouragement

  • Challenge

I refrain from judgments about the thoughts, feelings, and actions of those I help. I focus only on workability, do such thoughts, feelings, and actions lead to contentment and movement toward valued goals. I work hard to validate the reasonableness of experience – thoughts, feelings, actions, even when those things led to ineffective outcomes. I encourage the smallest movement toward valued living and nonjudgmentally investigate the barriers to doing so. I also challenge the status quo, using identified values of the client to establish behavioral goals and sensible timelines for change.


There are three general goals I have for every client:

1. Increase intentional actions versus “autopilot” living

Too often we find ourselves just allowing circumstance or our thinking/feeling guide us through the days, weeks, and months only to realize we are not where we want to be and we have not been acting according to our values. I help people develop a mindful way of living that uses values/goals as the reason for what they are doing.

2. Begin trusting your experience rather than your mind

Our mind is a relentless processor of information. Very often it generates information – ideas, thoughts, predictions based on our current emotional state and past experience. Unfortunately, these are not accurate or helpful. They are powerful and difficult to change. I help clients learn to coexist with their mind and its predictions, while moving toward their values and goals. I encourage clients to do what they value and then make an assessment about what occurred, rather than “going with the gut” about whether or not to do something, especially something they value.

3. Know how to get out of your emotional mind and into your wise mind

The emotional mind is the experience of the world through our emotions only. This is a very distorted, yet seemingly real, experience that often guides our behavior. Unfortunately, making decisions from our emotional mind usually addressed the short-term to the detriment of the longer-term. Wise Mind is where we can hear from our emotions, but also from our reason, about a situation. We maintain contact with our values while we make a decision that addresses the short-term issues while taking actions that do not derail us from our long-term goals. I help clients learn a set of skills that works for them in moving from an emotional mind view to a wise mind view of their life.

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