“We spend our lives hiding deep inside ourselves in paralyzing fear that someone might see us as we really are, or worse: We might see ourselves.”
-Mel Ash
About Me
Like a lot of therapists, my journey to this profession started in the client’s chair and has followed anything but a straight-line path. Over the course of my life and career, I’ve cobbled together a diverse assortment of experiences. In some cases that was by design, in others wholly by accident.
I began my career as a business reporter in the early 2000s covering a number of different beats for local and regional publications. After journalism I worked for a few years as a ghostwriter, marketing consultant, and content strategist before pivoting to pursue therapy as a profession.
And just to give a deeper sense of the, at times, wacky experiential breadth, I’m also…
A former restaurant cook who seriously considered going into the cookie baking business at one point in my 20s;
A former Div. I hammer thrower, who used to squat 550lbs. and used to bear a striking resemblance to Grizzly Adams who now also loves haiku and gardening.
A former startup founder; severe burnout survivor and 10-year denizen of the Nashville Recovery Community
A writer-turned-marketer-turned-therapist, who originally went to college planning to pursue Theoretical Physics only to finish in English several years (and colleges) later;
A mid-30s ADHD diagnosee; Father of three; and a Nashville native.
I have worked in a variety of settings with clients of all ages and from all walks of life — from high school and college students, to community mental health, to the department of corrections. My passion is for helping people get unstuck from the likes of shame, anxiety, perfectionism, harsh self judgment and criticism, etc. by moving toward genuine self compassion, increased psychological flexibility and deeper, embodied integration.
Let’s talk about what you’re after…
Working together…
Like I said on the front page, the easiest way to describe my approach is “eclectic”. I’m an Enneagram 5 — and a 9… they always tie — an unabashed nerd and I undoubtedly love to draw from all over the place when working with people. Tying that approach together, however, is a handful of guiding principles I bear in mind when working with any client…
Client-Centered Care - My goal is always to work alongside clients to find the solutions that will work for them. One-size-fits-all usually means it doesn’t fit anyone very well.
Strengths-Based Perspective - No matter how it’s going right this second, you’ve survived everything life has thrown at you. You have skills and strengths that you can bring to bear.
Person-in-Environment - Therapy is about how you feel as well as about how you respond to and navigate your surroundings. It doesn’t make sense to talk about one without the others — i.e. If your house is messy, you probably don’t need to call a firetruck. And if your house is actively on fire, the first step is not likely to be talking about how you feel about it. Does that make sense?
Functional Contextualism - Essentially, this is the idea that all behaviors serve some purpose. An important aspect of helping clients understand and unravel longstanding behavioral patterns can be helping them to uncover how their current behaviors — even the ones they don’t necessarily love — may be servicing a need in some fashion.