Treatments:

• Anxiety and Depression
• Mood Disorders
• Trauma and Stress
• Phase of Life Issues
• Relationship Issues
• Family Conflict 

Accepted Insurances:

• Medicaid
  • Nebraska Total Care
  • Healthy Blue
  • United Health Care
• BCBS
• Health Savings Account
• Self-pay

If you’ve made it to this website and you’re reading this bio, you’ve already taken the first step – sometimes most difficult step – and made the decision to search for help with improving your mental health. Now you need to find someone with whom you feel you can collaborate in making those improvements. We try to make that easier by providing you with information about how we approach that collaborative process, explaining both our methods and our basic counseling philosophies. 

Like many counselors, I begin from a person-centered approach, meaning that I believe that individuals are able to find their own solutions and have the power to make positive changes their lives. However, I also realize that there are times when we need the perspective of another to help draw out those solutions and create workable plans for positive change. Though it is true that we are each experts on the subject of ourselves, sometimes we are too close to the subject of ourselves to see ourselves clearly. This is particularly true when we are emotionally distressed or dealing with trauma, past or present.

As a counselor, I believe it is part of my purpose to provide that outside perspective, as well as to introduce you to evidence-based practices that have proven successful for others. I will work with you to try and find which practices work for you. I am trained in and make use of a combination of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to collaborate with clients in identifying ways to manage negative emotions and to correct those automatic thoughts and core beliefs that can interfere with one’s ability to make lasting progress in bettering one’s mental health.  

I also use Existential Psychotherapy to help clients find or construct meaning and purpose in both the larger sense and within the “smaller” things in life. In some cases, I combine Existential Psychotherapy with elements from Solution-Focused Therapy to encourage clients to identify personal values that them to formulate meaningful and values-driven goals and solutions. In other cases, I use elements of more traditional psychotherapy to help clients identify past origins of present issues.

As a former professor of literature and film, I also make use of both bibliotherapy and cinematherapy, when clients are open to the idea, as I have found that for some clients that reading the right book or watching the right film can have a profound, positive effect on mental health, as we can identify with characters, vicariously experience emotions similar to our own, and explore the solutions that work or do not work for the characters.

I have two years of experience working with adolescents and adults in inpatient, intensive outpatient, and outpatient settings. I have worked with clients with major depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, adjustment disorder, and ADHD, as well as with clients working on relationship and communication issues, educational issues, and various forms of familial conflict. I have also worked with clients dealing with issues stemming from relationships with family members and significant others with mental health issues, particularly personality disorders.

I have also worked with single parents trying to rebuild their families and make effective attempts at coparenting. I am particularly passionate about helping single fathers, custodial or non-custodial, work through issues related to dealing with family law and the new, often diminished role fathers play in their children’s lives after a divorce or break-up. I want to help fathers work through the trauma that can result from the experience of family court and possible continuing conflict in the wake of a divorce or break-up.

I am a firm believer in and practice of trauma-informed therapy and am committed to helping my clients process and incorporate trauma of any kind into their life narratives in a way that focuses upon and enhances their strength and resiliency, sometimes using some of the methods of Narrative Therapy.  I also build an awareness of the physiological components of trauma and all mental health issues into treatment planning, and I am more than happy to  consult with a client’s medical doctor regarding medication or other health issues that may contribute to a client’s mental well-being.

If you like what you read here, then I hope you will get in touch with me soon, and that together we will take your next step towards better mental health.