About Me
What is your background as a clinician?
A lot of my strengths and interests related to therapy are things I picked up as a kid. Family systems tend to shape each person to fit a role the family needs, and I took up the task of being “an even keel.” I indulged a serious substance use disorder beginning in adolescence and deteriorating into my mid-twenties, which at the time I had convinced myself was a lot of fun. However, once it became too grim to ignore, some important people in my life helped me realize how utterly miserable and unsustainable it had become.
During my client-side tour in substance use treatment, I made a big leap forward in terms of motivation, purpose, and maturity. After forming some profound connections with my peers and working with some outstanding helping professionals, I decided to carry the torch or recovery forward for myself and for others in a similarly desperate spot.
Having freed up an enormous amount of time, energy, and ambition that had been tied up in active addiction, I dedicated myself to education. As a non-traditional student at the University of North Texas, I studied abroad in Taiwan, presented my own research at a national conference in Washington DC, and served students in the UNTWELL clinic.
During my internship and after graduation, I worked on detox units, residential treatment centers, and outpatient clinics. I’ve walked alongside many different people from many different backgrounds on the long road from “it’s so over” to “we’re so back.” I still maintain my position as a part-time program therapist at All Points North in Dallas-Fort Worth because I love working as part of a strong interdisciplinary team and providing specialized treatment tailored for high-accountability professionals.
In early 2025, I joined my first group practice. Later in the same year, I rented my own office and hung my shingle my solo practice.
How do you actually work with people in session?
Based on my experience as a client, a scholar, and a clinician, I view the quality of the therapeutic alliance as supreme conduit for change. It’s the connection that lets me nurture and challenge, push and pull, instigate and soothe. Clients will eventually forget what I say in sessions, but they’ll remember how they felt when we were working together.
I avoid speaking in popular and reified therapy language, or “therapy-speak.” I rarely see much therapeutic use in terms like narcissist, toxic masculinity, and boundaries. Even if these things have merit as abstract ideas, all the categorizing and labeling usually isn’t helpful. We each have our own rich and unique interior worlds, personal histories, and relational patterns, and our language should reflect that.
This individualized approach makes it hard to say precisely what a typical session looks like, but I can share a handful of themes that I see come up with the population I work with. One is that many clients struggle to ask for help, usually because they don’t know what they need, don’t know how to ask, or don’t want to burden others. Another big one is recognizing limitations to serving others, with a lot of my clients carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and still feeling like it somehow isn’t enough.
What do you do outside of work?
Since I turned a new leaf in recovery, I’ve had some kind of athletic obsession like long distance cycling or ultramarathon running. It’s hard to describe, kind of like proving something or atoning for something. Lately I have been indoor bouldering, which as a bonus has deluded me into feeling control over my fear of heights and falling. I’ve also become a bit a liability on the ski slopes this year, too.
I also like to do some technical and creative work. My woodworking is slowly getting more functional and less crappy, as is my sewing (mostly camping and athletic gear).
I’ve been happily married to my wife Alicia for over ten years. Alicia is also a therapist. We try to talk about things other than work, and also travel and go to shows and just generally hang out a lot together. We have a scrappy kitty named Rosemary who has a surly attitude and a mysterious past.