How I got here
I started in substance abuse in 2013, working with people who were at their lowest, often court-involved or freshly out of treatment, trying to figure out how to build a life that wasn’t organized around the next high. That work was formative. It taught me that the drugs and alcohol were almost never the actual problem; it was what happened when someone ran out of other ways to manage something they hadn’t been able to face directly. The substance was a solution, just a catastrophically expensive one.
I went back to school at Georgia State University and completed my MSW in 2018 with a focus on clinical practice. I added CAADC certification the same year because I wanted a rigorous credential that reflected what I’d actually been doing. Since moving into full clinical licensure, my practice has broadened considerably, though the addiction framework informs how I think about almost everything: behavior that looks irrational almost always makes sense when you understand what it’s been managing.
How I work
My approach is direct. I don’t believe in spending six months circling the thing you came in to address. I’ll ask questions most people don’t expect a therapist to ask, because getting to the actual root of something quickly is more respectful of your time and your pain than being careful to the point of uselessness.
At the same time, directness without warmth is just confrontation, and that’s not what this is. I’m genuinely invested in the people I work with. I find the complexity of each person’s situation interesting, not burdensome. The work I do with one person rarely looks like the work I do with another, because people aren’t interchangeable and neither are their problems.
I’m certified in ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy) and trained in both EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS). ART and EMDR address something talk therapy often can’t (the body’s stored response to traumatic events) and can resolve the images and sensations driving distress without requiring anyone to narrate the worst thing that ever happened to them. IFS gave me the other half of the picture: a way to work with people who aren’t ready to turn toward a memory directly, building internal safety through their own protective parts. That work is not a lesser substitute for processing; for a lot of people it is the healing itself.
That is also where the Trauma Intensive format came from. Many of the people who need trauma treatment most (police officers, firefighters, medics, dispatchers, nurses, physicians) work schedules that make a standing weekly appointment functionally impossible. Concentrating the work into a single four or six hour day removes the logistical barrier that ends most of their treatment before it produces anything.
What I believe about therapy
Good therapy should produce observable change. Not just insight, but an actual shift in how someone moves through their life. I take that standard seriously. If something isn’t working, we change course. If you’re not getting what you came for, I want to know about it.
I also believe the therapeutic relationship itself matters more than most people in the field will admit. The techniques are real and the research is real, but no technique works in the absence of a relationship the client actually trusts. This is why the consultation call exists; it’s a genuine opportunity to find out if this is a good fit before either of us commits to anything.