VERMONT THERAPIST MVP, Blue Cross, Medicare, VT Medicaid INDIVIDUALS ONLY
Marriage and Family Therapist 100.0134068
You
- Want help living well while autistic, gay or trans (or all three) or want to talk about anything else with someone who gets you.
- You or a loved one has a serious or terminal illness, and need support and a place to share your fears and get support.
- Need grief counseling because life is more disrupted than you thought it would be.
- Live as many do with a lifelong ebb and flow of depression, anxiety or bipolar symptoms and want to get better at living well anyway.
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ME
More than anything else, I practice presence with you. For over 20 years, I have practiced mindfulness and presence in meditation. It has taken me out of a painful mental experience I mistook for my real life and put me in direct contact with something bigger and better. Spirituality in general has always been important, as have exercise, enjoyment of beauty in nature and the arts, and a patchwork of other supports. Through all of these and my own growth in therapy, I now live a satisfying and overall happy life. Working with the life I have and not the one I want instead brings freedom and wellness - to the point where the difficulties are manageable and can't ruin much any more! My experience of living well with my own challenges, as well as my professional grounding in Existential-Humanist therapy and mindfulness makes me an effective fellow traveler for you as you work out your own unique way of dealing with the life you have. The primary vehicle of growth in therapy is the relationship between us, so who I am is important. I bring over 60 years of highly varied life experience, including hospice work, serving as a home health aide, delivering papers, downloading satellite telemetry, writing legal arguments, baking bread, selling books, and teaching college German. I have experienced a lot in my lifetime, including coming out as gay, and can relate to all kinds of problems and experiences.
US
Therapy is above all an emotionally intimate human relationship. You won't be working with a professional persona, but with a professional present with you as himself. Present with you means the whole of you, including the parts you don't like or don't even see (though others in your life probably can). We also practice presence in your life as it is, not an unrealistic ideal of it, which in the end will leave you frustrated. With this presence and the new knowledge it brings you, you can see new choices to make in your world - ones you thought weren't available. You can try out these new choices and learn which ones help. Having more influence on your life and world can start to feel good. Rather than maintain a tight focus only on painful mental suffering or memories, our relationship helps you develop mindful contact with your here-and-now, big, joyful and peaceful mind - it really exists! With this new perspective, you can learn (and learn to appreciate) all kinds of new things about yourself and how your life can be. Genuineness and care from me call out the same in you, first from you toward yourself, and then on toward your loved ones. Making these shifts brings true relief. Finding your way back after you get lost in old ways of mind can happen faster, and more often. With plenty of work, that kind of experience can even become the norm! Life, and you, can get better!
Practice Focus
Neurodivergence and other unchanging challenges
You face challenges that make life your life hard, and which are not going to budge. You have no choice but to make your way in a world that probably doesn't get you and your brain. I can help you discover ways to invest your limited energy that truly serve you, and help you let go of the wasted mental efforts and habits that just make it worse.
Death and Grief
The hardest realities of all call for realism, groundedness and compassionate support. I am trained in hospice work and bereavement counseling. Wanting to help people with death led me into this field in the first place.
LGBT
You don't have to explain or defend yourself to me. I'm Gay. TLBQQI all welcome!