About

The profession of counseling and psychotherapy has been my second career. I was pursuing a PhD in health communication and began researching the changes in psychological self-efficacy that go along with recovery from addiction at a time when i was already in long-term recovery from alcohol dependence, as well as in my own therapy with a licensed clinical social worker. I began to explore the idea that clinical social work, the practice of counseling and psychotherapy, might be a perfect fit for me. I had spent my adult life in the serious practice and study of human communication (a master’s in speech communication, 21 years as a daily newspaper journalist, along with university teaching of journalism and speech). Consulting with a supportive professor of psychopathology, I became committed to pursuing a second career. I then embarked on the study of clinical social work, finishing my master’s (MSW) a year after completing my PhD. During this time I interned in the Psychiatric Intake Response Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Along the way, I moved into human services as director of a 100-bed drug rehab for men. I subsequently worked full-time as therapist in a pediatric primary care clinic, in a behavioral health clinic and in another primary care clinic, this time general practice with adults and children. I’m using a lot of “I’s” here, because I’m being asked to write about myself. But my approach to therapy — and on interpersonal relationships — rests on my favorite quotation, one from Paul Tillich, that: “The first duty of love is to listen.” To be more specific, I have learned in my practice that many of our problems begin in either recognizably traumatic or otherwise adverse experiences in our past, or in such experiences we acknowledge but do not think have had the negative effect they actually have. More and more, I find myself wanting to tell people that just because you have been through great difficulties does not mean you have to live with the hurtful fallout from those difficulties. I believe good therapy rests on trust and mutual respect between client and therapist, on taking the process seriously — even in the context of good humor and laughter! Finally, i consider the opportunity to help clients to be the greatest privilege — along with, of course, being a husband, father, and grandfather — of my life.