Insight Therapeutic Services - Expert Mental Health Care

At some point in my work with my clients, I often get asked, “Why did you become a therapist?”

My short – and intended to be humorous response – is, “I had an alcoholic father.” While this may be true, the longer answer is a little more involved. At a young age I found that I had a knack for listening to people. My friends dubbed me the “group therapist” in seventh grade, because I became the go to person when they had a problem that was upsetting them. Later, in high school when I attended social events, I tended to gravitate towards the outside of the ring of social activity. There I generally found peers going through issues in their lives that made them want to hide from the crowd. I would strike up a conversation with them and usually we got into deeper talks about typical teenage problems, questions about life, and sometimes deeper concerns, like substance abuse, intense discord with parents, or sexual trauma. I found people needed to talk about these issues, and they generally felt better when they did.

In my senior year of high school, we had one semester of economics, and a second semester of psychology. While I liked the economics coursework, I just couldn’t wrap my head around how capitalism worked, and I barely passed that course. Fortunately for a high school senior who was not quite sure of what career he wanted to pursue; the psychology coursework fascinated me. On a personal level it helped me to make sense of my own life. Prior to this course, I sometimes felt overwhelmed with hundreds of scattered thoughts about life, where I fit in the world, or why I felt anxious at times, and depressed at others. In the whirlwind that is a teenage mind, all these scattered thoughts couldn’t find a place to land so I could work on them to shape them into something I could grasp. Learning about psychology gave me information that helped me to organize and categorize all those thoughts, and my life started to make sense. It was freeing! This experience compelled me to continue on with my studies so that I could learn more about myself, more about people in general, and how to get individuals who were going through hard times to see that they are whole, complete, and perfect. Life and hurtful experiences just got in the way of their knowing that, and sharing about these experiences, feeling heard, and learning a new way to approach these issues can go a long way towards healing and recovery.

After that first class in psychology, I never looked back. I was able to earn my Master’s Degree, and I went on to become a licensed marriage and family therapist. It’s been over 25 years of working as a mental health counselor, and I have loved every moment of it! It is always a pleasure and an honor that my clients trust me enough to share about their deepest hurts and life difficulties, and I am ever grateful to be a part of their personal growth!

There are a lot of good therapists out there. I’d like to think I am one of them. If you are interested in bettering yourself in an environment that is nonjudgmental, focused on the positive, and sometimes delves into humor over the absurdity of life, please reach out to me. I would be honored to have the privilege of working with you.