About Me
I was drawn to the work of mental health counseling as a profession because I have benefited from counseling and seen how counseling has helped others.
I’ve spent most of my career working as a pastor in California, The Netherlands, New York City, and here in Washington State. My calling as a pastor could be encapsulated by Eugene Peterson’s quote: “my job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy but to help them see grace operating in their lives.”
As I have sought to live into that calling over the years, my greatest joy and meaning has come from the mentoring relationships that I have made and the pastoral counseling that I have been able to give to youth, adults, couples, and families. This passion led me to seek more education, tools, and skills so that I could help people mend and grow through difficult times, and has ultimately to my focus as a mental health counselor.
Outside of counseling, I enjoy spending time with my wife and 11 year old son, seeking quiet places and hiking until nature is all that I hear and see, playing music, traveling, reading, spending time with good friends, and even sometimes stopping to listen and look for “the untrimmable light of the world.”
There is no magic pill in counseling that will make your life perfect. But healing and growth can happen in an intentional relationship where the focus is on you and your story, whatever your story is.
My approach to counseling is informed by REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy), a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and emotionally focused therapies such as EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples) and IFS (Internal Family Systems Therapy). These therapies focus on how our past traumas and conflicts can affect our present relationships and reality, how to work with irrational thoughts, beliefs and overwhelming emotions, and how to incorporate new skills and understandings that can bring transformation and hope.
I view counseling as collaborative in nature, so my approach and the modalities I use will shift depending on the client’s strengths, needs, and abilities. I also take into consideration the individual differences and developmental stages of each person and couple I meet with and seek to respect your experience, beliefs, and values. I am also informed by my faith as a Christian and am open to bringing faith into the counseling process if the client would like.
I am happy to work with you so that you can equipped with the necessary tools to help you face and work with the challenges in your life. We will work together to notice and name your struggles and emotional experience, to work with what you are experiencing, and find ways to cope and thrive.
My Approach
I graduated from Whitworth University with a double major in Sociology and Religion, and a minor in Spanish.
I received a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Seminary, which provided me training in short term, solution-based therapy, spiritual direction, and family systems counseling, along with other pastoral training.
I graduated with my Masters in Professional Counseling/Ed.S degree from Seton Hall University in 2024
I completed a 15 month counseling internship at the Reach Counseling Center in Bellevue, WA, a low-cost counseling center that works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families with a variety of mental health needs.
Through my 20 years as a pastor, I have worked with adults, adolescents, teens, and families from a variety of cultures and backgrounds experiencing crisis, grief, relational issues, anxiety, depression, and other mental and spiritual health needs.
I have worked with many couples seeking premarital counseling and marital enrichment, and am a facilitator for Prepare/Enrich and SYMBIS.
I am an Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA)