Before I was a therapist, I spent eighteen years as a pastor, sitting with people in their hardest moments. Grief with no name yet. Doubt that had quietly hollowed things out. The slow wreckage of addiction. Anxiety that wouldn't let up. Wounds carried for decades without ever being spoken about. Couples who loved each other but kept ending up in the same painful fight.

I didn't always have answers. I learned to stay anyway. To trust that presence in the dark matters, even when the light takes a long time coming.

That's still what I bring into the therapy room. Not a script, but a willingness to sit inside your story long enough to understand it. To notice not just what happened, but what it meant, and what it's still costing you.

I hold a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling, and I'm completing my doctorate in counselor education and supervision. I also teach psychology at the university level. I love the academic side of this work, mostly because it keeps sharpening how I listen.

Outside the therapy room, I'm a reader, a coffee drinker, and the kind of person who will find a way to work Lord of the Rings or Star Wars into a session. Probably more than once.

I take this work seriously. I just don't think that means we can't be human in the room together.