Qualifications & Experience

I hold a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Washington – Seattle and a Bachelor’s degree in Church Ministries with a Youth Emphasis from Northwest College (now Northwest University) in Kirkland, Washington.

My Call to Christian Counseling

My current career in counseling and my initial vocation in pastoral ministry with youth and young adults are an outflowing of one another, inextricably linked, and have continued to inform one another over the years. Feeling deeply called to serve “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40 and Isaiah 61) where they were at, knowing many would not come to me in a youth group in church, my vocational ministry was much more akin to a chaplaincy, working with both para-church organizations and secular social service agencies serving at-risk youth and young adults in the life places they found themselves. Feeling the lead to further my clinical training to be a more useful tool in the Master’s hands, I pursued my Master’s in Social Work. During my clinical training, my career began shifting and my focus expanded beyond just youth and young adults to across the lifespan, but all informed by that same call in Matthew 25 and Isaiah 61.

More About Me/On a Personal Note

I love people. I am blessed with a large family that includes my wife, our six kids (all still in the home!), our foster grandkiddo (that makes seven!), our four dogs, two cats, and a community of rabbits that called our property home before we did. Most of my time is spent loving people and cherishing being part of the journey of their lives. When I am able, I do enjoy reading, studying and discussing philosophy and theology, listening to music, and trying to become more “handy” in my middle-age transition from “city boy” to “nature boy” after moving back to small-town country living.

Areas of Expertise/Specialties

• ADHD
• Anger Management
• Anxiety
• Autism
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chemical Dependency
• Coaching
• Counseling for Teens
• Couples Counseling
• Depression
• Family Counseling
• Grief and Loss
• Group Counseling
• Individual Counseling
• Infidelity and Affairs
• Marriage Counseling
• Men’s Issues
• Online Counseling
• Personal Development
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Relationship Issues
• Spiritual Development
• Trauma

Anxiety

Anxiety – for many, even the word itself may produce the very feelings of distress and unease that defines it! Anxiety is often (though not always) very closely linked to unhealthy stress. While some stress can be healthy and prompt us to appropriate action, like the proper concern about an upcoming big exam so that we study well for it, all too often, stress spills over into excessive levels and persists longer than it should, becoming unhealthy. Anxiety in this case is often the persistent worry about the possibility of real or perceived negative outcomes of our stressful circumstances, particularly when we feel less than capable of addressing it well. Other times, anxiety may be due to hard and uncomfortable past circumstances and the worry about experiencing them again if we don’t navigate life just so from moment to moment – ultimately, a lack of trust that overshadows living. Like anything else, to effectively process your experience of anxiety and take back your life, we will explore where your anxiety comes from, helping us identify its base and its present problematic effects, and identify skills for the “here and now” management while we look to dig it out at the roots.

Depression

Depression can be one of the most difficult of all the impairments of our human condition. It is very the opposite of the promise that we have in Christ, that He came to give us life, and to have it in abundance, as depression presents as an accomplice of the thief coming to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10). Depression can have multiple root causes, from physical health issues that need to be addressed and managed, to difficulty coping with a particular hardship we are enduring, to our particular response to dealing with a trauma or loss.

Depression can even be an existential state born out of processing conflicts with our values and beliefs and how that impacts how we relate inwardly to ourselves and outwardly to the world around us. Together, we will identify the roots of the depression you experience, creating tangible, focused goals in each target area to make the work more manageable and more successful when taken in smaller stacked steps.

Grief and Loss

In our frenetic, fast-paced society today, we have lost the ability to grieve our losses in deep and productive ways. These losses include more than death – they may be our cherished hopes and dreams, our connectivity to others and ourselves, and any number of other things that bring value and meaning to our lives, for which separation cleaves a part of us from ourselves.

Whether we are pressured by others or pressuring ourselves, there is the feeling required to “suck it up” and “get over it” and to just “move on.” Yet doing these without space to be sufficiently vulnerable, reconnect with sustaining hope, and learn to “hold close while also letting go,” serves to prolong and deepen the extent of our grief and magnify our losses.

We are, in Christ, not to grieve as others do who do not hold the same hope (1 Thess. 4:13), yet many of us have lost connections with heritages and traditions that helped instruct us and accept us in our grieving. Walking together, our goal would be to create this space where you can slow down, acknowledge and be acknowledged in this hurt, and connect to healthy grieving as only those with true hope may find.

Personal Development and Spiritual Development

Developing ourselves involves two components – alleviating negatives and instituting positives. The first is the process of refinement, the latter is the process of forging. It is a true gift when the season of counseling can be focused on this forging, the becoming more of that which we already are – new creations (1 Cor. 5:12).

Personal and spiritual development is getting to know who you are in His sight and then prioritizing purpose to the work of being that to the fullness of your ability. This may be in an aspect of functioning, such as being more studious, or in your character in Christ, such as cultivating a heart of gratitude. The joy in this work is that there is always more gain to be made, in growth to experience, when we can see how sometimes that “even good may be the enemy of great” in the pursuit of the high calling to be, marvelously so, His workmanship.

Trauma and PTSD

I tend to reserve the word “trauma” for the experience of an injury to the person/self of such magnitude that it surpasses a place of hurt and moves into the realm of harm. There is an overwhelming of our innate, natural ability to cope with the degree of injury and we can be left in a long-term impaired state that we are unable to address well on our own.

Given our own flawed nature, the flawed nature of others, and the fallen state of the world in which we live, we all have already or will yet at some point experience some form of trauma in our lifetime. This harm can be as diverse as we are, across all the areas of our being – physical, mental/ emotional, and spiritual. Rather than being limited to just one domain, trauma most often impacts us across many at the same time.

I have spent the last 17+ years working primarily with military service members and veterans through the process of transition out of the military and onward into the journey of life after, and before that, primarily with at-risk, foster care, and homeless youth and young adults. The vast majority of this work has involved trauma-informed and directed care. Though some of the areas of trauma, like exposure to combat or family rejection, are very unique to specific domains like military service and homelessness, the range of traumas experienced was as diverse as the individuals I had the honor and privilege of knowing: combat traumas, sexual assault traumas, moral injury, institutional betrayal, disaster exposure, physical injuries, and more.

Our work together will be focused on identifying the places where harm has occurred and how you personally experience it, applying in a caring and compassionate way selective evidence-based treatment options infused with the truth of Scripture, along with cultural and historical wisdom from the past to help you be a more resilient version of yourself as you integrate, incorporate, and grow not just past the trauma, but through it.

Sessions: I offer 53-minute sessions. Sessions can be held more than once per week, weekly, or every other week. Scheduling options are discussed in greater detail during your Risk-Free Initial Session.

Availability (by office location):

• Lacey – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday
• Online (WA Only)– Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday

Fees: I offer a Risk-Free Initial Session for individuals, couples, and groups looking to pursue counseling with me. Please note that there is a fee for the Risk-Free Initial Session as it is a clinical hour and reimbursable to most insurance companies, but if you choose not to reschedule and continue therapy after the initial session the entire fee for the session will be waived. For ongoing treatment the full fee per session is required at the time of service.

Insurance: As a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW), some insurance companies will reimburse for a portion of my services (as an Out of Network Provider). Please consult with your insurance provider as to whether they specifically cover adolescents, individuals, and couples.

Receipts/Statements: In the event you require a printed or digital receipt, I will provide receipts for personal use, insurance reimbursement, Flex Spending Accounts (FSA), and Health Savings Accounts (HSA).

Payment options: Cash, Check, or Credit Card (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, & American Express). A fee of up to 4% per transaction may be added for credit card payments.