I'm a human, with a brain and a nervous system.
Just like you.
That means I'm susceptible to chronic pain. Just like you.

People have called me sensitive.
People are right. I am sensitive.
I'm a faithful family member and I'm a loving friend.
I'm a failed perfectionist - and I'll keep failing cuz I'll never be perfect, no matter how hard I try.
I'm, of course, a therapist. I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in New York.
I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I spent my childhood gay and closeted in the Catholic Church.
For years I told myself that wasn't traumatic because "it could have been worse." I was right, it could have been worse. But I was wrong. It was traumatic.

Now, though, here I am.
Still queer :)

I'm a White cisgender man.
I capitalize the word White because, as Nell Irvin Painter puts it, leaving the w lowercase falsely situates Whiteness as neutral and normal.
It's not neutral and normal.
I question myself and my cultural assumptions. And you are welcome to question me too.

I'm trained in many therapeutic modalities including psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, trauma-informed therapy, attachment-based therapy, and EMDR.
My training makes me a good therapist, but my humanity makes me a great therapist.
I feel emotion.
Sometimes I feel angry, I feel scared, I feel restless, I feel lonely, I feel sad, I feel unfulfilled, I feel desperate, I feel self-loathing.
I feel a lot.
But my feelings don't scare me.
And your feelings don't scare me either. Bring them on. It's therapy.
In our work together, I'll help you learn to tolerate your feelings.
You can face your fears and feel your feelings because - yes - doing this emotional work is a key part of the treatment plan that'll resolve your chronic pain.

And, yes - over the years I've had: a childhood of chronic headaches, years of chronic back pain, decades of chronic hip pain, severe (like, severe) chronic irritable bowel syndrome...
I've had a lot of issues.
And I was one of those people who tried everything - doctors, medications, alternative doctors, herbs, cleanses, elimination diets, acupuncture, chiropractors, back stretches, sacroiliac joint exercises, supplements, unconventional supplements, very unconventional supplements, you know the drill. And nothing worked.
My chronic pain took me to a place of absolute desperation. 
I know you get it - because you've probably been there too.
 
But here's the thing: all those treatments were based on the wrong paradigm.
Finally, I learned about something new, something effective: using mind-body work to target these mind-body conditions, the pain's true etiology.
That changed everything.

Using this work, I'm finally experiencing true symptom recovery.
And, let me tell you, the recovery's going great.