About

My counseling experience began while working in an inpatient adolescent treatment unit while in my last two years of college at Southern Methodist University (SMU). I graduated from SMU with Departmental Distinction in Psychology through participation in doing research on memory processing, teaching undergraduate psychology classes, and working with my supervising professor on research publication. I went on to receive my Master of Arts in Counseling from Amberton University in Dallas, Texas.

During my Masters Practicum, I worked in four different counseling areas. I served as a Chaplain with Marketplace Ministries, providing employee assistance program (EAP) counseling to employees of Southside Bank in Tyler, Texas. I worked for a clinical psychologist doing counseling for special education students in the Van Independent School District. I assisted the Pastor of Green Acres Baptist Church with counseling cases that were going to require long term services. To round out my experience, I worked for a counseling center serving children, adolescents, and adults from the surrounding community.

Prior to pursuing my counseling license, I took a detour into pharmaceutical sales, working with primary care and specialty physicians in the medical specialties of cardiology, sleep medicine, respiratory care, and women’s health. I was successful in this field but learned over the 10 years in the industry that my passion was not in sales but in teaching and counseling where I could work one on one with people in need.

In pursuing my license, I completed a three year internship as a mental health clinician with the Bradshaw State Jail counseling adult male offenders. I performed screenings, intakes, individual and group counseling, training of institutional staff in suicide prevention and intervention, and psychological assessments. The greatest lesson I learned during that time is that much healing can be achieved by simply being present and available to hurting people who have never truly had someone listen and treat them with dignity.

When I began working for Winsted Psychological Services over seven years ago, I learned that I have a passion for working with adults that have been victims of trauma (e.g., abuse and neglect). My focus has been the use of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and DNMS (Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy) as primary therapeutic modalities around which I structure most of my counseling.

My wife and I have been married for over 30 years. We have three biological children ages 25, 21, and 18 and three girls we adopted through foster care who are 12, 11, and 8 years of age. We have been foster parents since 2009 and have fostered ten (10) children ranging in age from 10 days to 12 years.
My wife works as a case manager for a post adoption services agency so we are very involved personally and professionally with counseling at all levels.

I bring a wealth of life experience, education, and training to my counseling practice. I would consider my approach to be considerate, non-judgmental, warm, and accepting.

I believe that everyone can benefit from counseling at some point in their lives. I'm excited to see that you have made a decision to seek help for yourself in whatever capacity that might be.

I look forward to working with you!