educations & vocations
My formal therapy experience looks like this:
Three years as a therapist at the Portland VA Hospital.
Two years internship in community group practice as a therapist.
One year of volunteer work on a Los Angeles suicide hotline.
My formal education looks like this:
Master of Social Work, Portland State University
BA in Creative Writing, Columbia University
My informal education looks like this:
Jobs as a grocery bagger, a janitor, a busboy, a host, a server, a massage therapist, a receptionist, a barista, a circulation desk attendant, a mover, a video retail associate, a professional singer-songwriter.
My own therapy.
An obsession with learning everything I can about therapy.
Sitting on the meditation cushion and seeing what’s there.
philosophy & approach
In general, our sessions will revolve around these four questions.
What it is like to be you today?
Here, we get really curious about all aspects of your experience. We’ll find that the more curious we can get about what’s happening right now, the more we’ll notice how aspects of our past and conditioning are operating undercover to cause suffering.
What is it like to be you with me today?
We’ll explore what’s happening in your mind and body as you engage in a deepening relationship with another human being (who happens to be me). The therapeutic relationship is real, meaning that whatever frustrating conditioning you bring to our relationship will be the same you bring to other relationships. The biggest difference is that as your healing partner I won’t respond with my own conditioning—with fear, judgment, abandonment, psychoanalysis or criticism—like others in your life may be prone to doing. Instead, I’ll respond with warm curiosity, which means we get to be both real and playful with our experience at the same time.
How is your experience right now congruent or incongruent with your authentic self?
As we explore these questions, you’ll soon feel a sense of “this isn’t me” or “this IS me.”
Now that I’ve noticed who I am and who I’m not, what now?
Here we strategize ways to take your authenticity out of therapy and into the world.
For no practical reason, here is a picture of my dog Pablo.