About Me

Like many in the field of psychology, my path to helping others grew out of a desire to understand my own life, mind and emotions.  Early in adulthood, I found myself wondering (as maybe you do too): what does it mean to live a meaningful, fulfilling life? This question has become a beacon for me, both personally and professionally.  It is what I continue to contemplate as a foundation of my clinical practice.  However, before deciding to pursue therapy as a form of livelihood, I spent several years developing my own psychological and emotional toolkit.  This endeavor began with the intent to build a stronger personal foundation than my education, parents, and the culture at large were able to provide.  Through exposure to a breadth of perspectives on life’s difficult questions (namely Buddhism, Stoicism, Existential Philosophy, and of course the various schools of Western Psychology), I learned of possibilities to discover a previously untapped resilience, possibilities available to each of us.  My subsequent work in a range of clinical settings, including outpatient mental health clinics, substance abuse treatment centers, and in-patient psychiatric hospitals has deeply reinforced this lesson. 

          This is what makes my clinical practice unique: my own careful investigation of human struggle, and my pragmatic experimentation towards addressing it, as an offering for positive influence on clients’ lives.  I view the therapeutic process to be very simple: through a supportive encounter, one’s growth impulse expresses naturally.  Though, what we explore in session, and how we explore it, will be directly influenced by the attitudes and techniques that I have experienced to be the most effective for personal transformation and growth.  Alongside a close consideration of the most up-to-date empirical research on effective treatments, my practice is most influenced by my personal intensive study of, and experience in, mindfulness, as well as values-based approaches to well-being (such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and CBT).

          Through my experiences in martial arts and athletics, I have come to appreciate the benefits and pitfalls of our cultural attitude towards providing guidance and coaching to one another. We all want to discover our full potential, and engaging with the therapeutic process has taught me there is something beyond the mere application of willpower to develop skills. It is my aim within the clinical setting to balance and integrate the strength and vulnerability of being human, to provide a space for clients to become more psychologically flexible, for clients to patiently learn how to experience emotions in a safe and compassionate setting while maintaining a supportive structure in moving towards treatment and life goals.  My view is that therapy is a creative and collaborative process, and I am interested in having interactions that foster clients’ intelligence and courage in navigating the range of life’s challenges.