Prior to my calling as a therapist and life coach I spent a majority of my life running my technology consulting business. Since then, I have had the pleasure of supporting and helping clients from all walks of life for the past 8 years. I received my Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling from University of Massachusetts Boston. I received my life, health and wellness coach certification from the Health Coach Institute. I am so grateful for having the opportunities in life that my privilege has provided me in being able to work with some of the best coaches in the world in the fields of psychology, finance, business and self-improvement techniques. I am trained in Relational Life Therapy and Pragmatic Experiential therapy and in my sessions I utilize humor to provide a safe space for clients so they can feel validated and supported on their journey of becoming relational with themselves their families on a quest to discovering their true self that has been trapped in their trauma of the past.

My first exposure to working in the human services field was with an organization called Parents Helping Parents where I developed parenting support programs and trained volunteers to deliver support groups to parents across the country. I provided support for parents in prisons throughout the commonwealth, sober homes across the greater Boston area as well as online groups that provided support to parents across the country and around the world. Working with parents from all stages of life helped me understand what their needs were while trying to support them in understanding how their experiences in life and the challenges that they are facing impact not only their own mental health but their relationship and mental health of their children. Parenting teenagers is a very challenging job and that is why I have taken my years of experience working with teens and families into my private practice.

I also come with years of experience working with children and teenagers aging in range from 6-18. My experience working with these individuals comes from my time spent working at a residential program for children and currently in private practice. I spent my internship working at a local community clinic in Plymouth, MA where 80% of my clients were children and families. I have worked with children with extensive trauma, ADHD, OCD, Depression, Anxiety, Engaging in Self-harm, Autism, ODD, Trauma and Bi-Polar disorders to name a few. I have found that to have success with helping children, the parents and or caregivers must be engaged in the treatment process. I have found that parents that show up and say “fix my kid” and see you next week have very little success when it comes to supporting their child’s needs and addressing the underlying behaviors that are bringing them and their children into therapy.

We live our lives in a family system and the family needs to be part of the process in moving forward for everyone. Our relational stance with ourselves is critical in determining our relations with our children, family and partners. If not, the work can only be half done, which means that if a teen is making progress in counseling and returns to the same environment where nothing is changing than how can they expect to change when nobody else in the family system is. We need to meet teenagers were they are at and not where we expect them or need them to be. Teenagers need support that is non judging and the person that is working them should not need anything from them. That is one of our challenges as parents because we want our children to be happy and successful and that is the reason they have trouble sharing what is going on in their world with us. They may have problems talking to friends for fear of judgement and not fitting in. That is where a trusted counselor can bridge the gap, meet the child where they are and help them make sense of the world that they are trying to figure out. While at the same time supporting the parents and coaching them to help them discover what their child needs and how to effectively communicate with them when they have shut down or their anger is running the show.

I spent time working in one of the most prestigious psychiatric hospitals in the work and had the opportunity to work with adults from all walks of life struggling with anxiety, depression, Bi-Polar and schizophrenia. I was able to utilize my therapy and life coaching skills to deliver groups that help supported these individuals through one of the most challenging times of their lives. For the past several months I have been working with couples/parents and families and helping them navigate relationship challenges, co-parenting duties and supporting them in becoming relational with each other and the problem that they see is typically not the challenge that needs to be worked on!

Finally, I am an author and have spent several years of my life studying and trying to figure out how grief and loss affect our mental health, physical health and relationships. My wife and I speak at national conferences about grief, loss and relationships and support individuals that have lost loved ones that have become stuck in their grief and have no hope for the future. I love travelling the world with my amazing wife of 35 years and spend time with my beautiful dogs.

Through my work and my own losses I have found that there is no one size fits all approach to moving forward through our pain. However, I am here to say that there is always something to try and you cannot find what you are looking for and need if you do not try. Time heals all wounds is a phrase that upset me when I was going through my own dark journey and disliked that phrase. Time can heal wounds if we are doing the work to change and that cannot happen if we are struggling with depression and anxiety about past and future. Lack of hope is the terminator of all dreams and that is why I focus heavily on finding the hope that an individual has that can motivate them to change and discover the person they are supposed to become.

A great mentor of mine once said “the biggest regret in life is not meeting the person you are supposed to become”. Or something like that!

1. Think about where you are in this moment.

2. If nothing changes, where will you be in 12 months.

3. What about 5 years.

4. What regrets will you be living with if you don’t find hope and invest in discovering the life that you are supposed to be living and not the one that someone expected you to live or the negative life experiences that have you stuck?