I completed the OutCare trainings because you matter to me. I want my heart and mind to have an ever expanding capacity to love people better. We don’t often talk about love as a therapeutic factor but my experience as a therapist these last 20 years tells me that it does make a difference in the journey to recovery. I think we can grow to love with more intelligence and we can love with a greater sense of fairness and justice and that’s only the beginning of what I’ve gotten out of trainings that focus on the LGBTQ+ community. Maybe like me, you were raised in a conservative church that somehow misunderstood the most important messages that Christ had to share with us. I knew instinctively they were wrong. “Leftist Christian radical” and “Christian Socialist” are a couple terms that describe me.

I spent my first 8 years of college studying philosophy, religion and art. Midway through my Master’s Degree in Art I realized the best part of my day was not making art, it was talking to undergrads about their boyfriend problems or learning disabilities or where to go to grad school. I’d been the recipient of nearly 10 years of therapy at that point and I suddenly had a clear direction for my life.

As a counselor I know that together we can find practical ways to improve: relationships, low self esteem, attention and organization, unstable emotions, sadness, anxiety, panic, grief issues, obsessions, thought disorder, mood swings and career problems. I welcome anyone who has severe mental health concerns. I welcome partners, siblings and adult children of individuals with severe mental illness. (We probably have a lot in common!) My approach is to provide compassionate listening to get an idea of how things are right now as compared to how you would like them to be. This is a calm environment where it’s ok to open up at your own pace. This is also an environment where “over sharing” and “trauma dumping” is not a thing. Even if you think you’re “a lot” I’m here to tell you I’ve never met someone who is “too much”.