I create a non-judgmental environment and allow a safe space for the client to express their thoughts and feelings. I am a team player and comfortable with multi-disciplinary team.

My goal as a counselor is to empower clients to mindfully change their lives in a positive manner by focusing on recovery and welfare and promoting healthy personal growth. I provide a safe and nurturing environment to meet my clients' individual needs.

My 25+ years of experience has taught me the importance of making the time to listen and understand before I start making suggestions. This involves understanding each person's life story, administering assessment tools, reviewing relevant records, and interviewing other people that my client and I agree should be involved. I believe strongly in evaluating strengths as well as pain, with my feedback emphasizing the former. I also believe in letting my clients know about what research-based treatments are available to them so that we can collaborate in experiencing transformative change ASAP. I believe in setting life-altering goals before beginning, and checking on progress as we go. My intention is to promote healing, wellness, and happiness as thoroughly and as effectively as possible. With child and teen clients, I use a variety of methods to make each person comfortable (e.g., I use magic to connect with kids and teens, referring to myself as a wizard).

Has the stress of everyday life become too overwhelming? Do you feel your emotions are running high and starting to negatively impact your relationships with others? Maybe you just don’t feel quite like yourself. Maybe you have tried to cope on your own, but nothing seems to make a meaningful, long-term impact. Now more than ever, people are feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about how they are supposed to care for their own needs while balancing relationships and busy schedules. Starting therapy can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! I believe finding a therapist who is the right fit is key to lasting change. After an initial consultation, we will start by taking the time to understand the challenges you are facing. We will explore your past and present experiences to better understand the patterns and emotions that have you feeling “stuck,” and we will collaborate on the best plan to help you push through the barriers keeping you in place. I offer a safe and supportive environment while providing a new perspective on issues you are encountering in order to guide you along your healing journey. Helping people live a more confident and empowered life is my passion. The road to growth, change, and healing can be a difficult one, but you don’t have to walk it alone. Call or email today for a consult, and together we can get started on your path to a better life!

My passion is supporting and encouraging positive change and healing in people. I hope to walk alongside you on your personal path. Through a genuine and crucial therapeutic relationship, we will celebrate strength and grow through hurt into healing with change. I practice from an existential positive framework. I adore and am grateful to be doing such positive work each day. I love watching positive change and growth emerge in my client’s life and their personal inner being. I work with individuals, families, kiddos, teens, and couples. I focus on different needs and dynamics including career, interpersonal, motivation, trauma, sexuality, and self-growth. I look forward to working together and supporting you in your journey.

Many people come to therapy because they are tired of surviving. They may be struggling with the effects of trauma, grief and loss, relationship challenges, anxiety, depression, or life transitions that have left them feeling disconnected from themselves and others. I believe our struggles make more sense when they are understood within the context of our life experiences, relationships, and the environments that shaped us. The ways we learn to trust, protect ourselves, connect with others, and understand our worth are often influenced by experiences that occurred long before we recognized their impact. My approach is trauma-informed, attachment-based, and culturally responsive. I work with individuals, couples, and families to explore patterns that may no longer serve them, heal unresolved wounds, strengthen relationships, and build a greater sense of clarity, connection, and purpose. I integrate EMDR and other evidence-based approaches to help clients process difficult experiences while developing new ways of relating to themselves and others. Therapy is not about fixing what is broken. It is about understanding your story, recognizing your strengths, and creating space for healing, growth, and meaningful change.

Accepting new clients remotely and in person. I've practiced psychotherapy for over 40 years, and during most of that time also taught psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins Medical School. My areas of specialization are bipolar type 2 and borderline personality condition. I've also worked with many entrepreneurs since the publication of my book, The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America. What's different about me is that after receiving traditional training, I've integrated it with meditation. Mindfulness, especially when combined with therapy, provides calm, objective self-awareness that leads to self-control, which may lessen the need for medication. More meditation can mean less medication. More recently, I'm working with research subjects who have undergone psilocybin therapy for a book, "The Cosmic Consciousness Cure." Affecting the same brain areas as meditation, psilocybin therapy produces a quantum leap in mindfulness. I'd be happy to speak with anyone seeking legal psilocybin treatment. I can't provide it, but it is now legally available in Oregon, and I would be happy to work with clients on integrating that experience.

I am a licensed professional counselor with a passion for helping individuals explore and resolve their own problems. I have over 17 years of experience in the field of mental health, working with a diverse population. I am an innovative and effective professional with outstanding therapeutic and interpersonal skills. I have a talent for motivating, teaching, supporting, and effectively collaborating with individuals to help them achieve their treatment goals. I am highly motivated and conscientious. I can offer a wealth of knowledge, experience, and transferable skills in therapeutic sessions. My main therapeutic foundations are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), solution-focused therapy, and individual and group dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). I have had great success with individuals experiencing severe mental health conditions and co-occurring challenges, including, but not limited to, major depressive issues, mood conditions, anxiety, eating issues, behavioral conduct challenges, personality conditions, and substance or alcohol use challenges etc.

I specialize in the treatment of sexual issues such as pornography and sexual addiction, and treatment for pre- and post-adjudicated individuals with sexual behavior challenges. I provide individual, family, and group therapy, comprehensive psychosexual risk assessment for individuals charged with sexual offenses at the pre- and post-conviction stages, and expert testimony. Prior to creating my own practice, I was the executive director and co-owner of Freeland and Hildembrand Clinical and Forensic Associates, a community-based, full-service forensic mental health clinic that worked exclusively with adults and juveniles with sexual behavior issues. I offer relapse prevention and psychoeducational-based treatment utilizing a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approach. My relapse prevention training is designed to assist clients in understanding their offense or sexual addiction cycle, triggers, and the steps they need to take to avoid acting out sexually. Therapy with me will be highly interactive, with a strong psychoeducational component aimed at helping clients better understand and take control of their sexual compulsions.

Life often presents us with difficulties and struggles. Sometimes having someone who is willing to listen without judging what you are going through can help you with sorting out your problems and difficulties. Telling your story enables you to come to terms with your current experiences. You may be dealing with difficult life events, feeling sad, anxious or depressed. Therapy can help you to learn coping skills and techniques to solve problems. I encourage you to reach out today to see how I can be of help to you. I have worked with clients with anxiety, depression, trauma, addictions and mood disorders. I enjoy helping those who struggle with a desire to change behaviors. I am passionate about working with those who are experiencing stress or anxiety and helping those dealing with problems with self-esteem or difficulties in their current or past relationships.

Searching for a therapist to guide you on your journey towards healing, change, and empowerment can be time-consuming and daunting. Everyone has the right to quality and affirming care, and that starts from the first moment you reach out to me. I will strive to always provide a safe, open, and non-judgmental atmosphere that will foster the positive therapeutic alliance needed to help you achieve your goals. My approach is not one-size-fits-all, and I only see a limited number of clients, which allows us the opportunity to set a focus and the pace you require along your path.

If there is one thing I hope you take away from an encounter with me, it is this: you are precious and valuable. That belief is at the heart of what I call Treasure Therapy. I believe every person has inherent dignity and worth, even when life, relationships, failure, shame, conflict, or loss have made it difficult to feel that way. My passion is engaging people in deeper therapeutic encounters that lead toward hope, meaning, connection, growth, and healing. I am especially passionate about helping people understand the deeper patterns shaping their lives and relationships. Rather than focusing only on symptoms or surface-level solutions, I work from a whole-person perspective that considers your emotions, relationships, history, body, beliefs, values, sexuality, spirituality, and the systems you are part of. Couples therapy is one of my primary specialties, and it has been for more than 15 years. With a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy, I am trained to understand not only each partner individually, but also the relational system they create together: the patterns of attachment, conflict, intimacy, communication, and protection that can keep even loving couples stuck. My role is not to decide who is right or wrong. It is to understand the relationship itself, help each partner feel heard, identify the cycle underneath the conflict, and help you create a healthier, more connected way of relating. I work with couples dealing with recurring conflict, emotional disconnection, communication difficulties, trust injuries, sexual and intimacy concerns, differences in desire, parenting stress, life transitions, attention-deficit hyperactivity (ADHD) and neurodivergence within relationships, and questions about whether or how the relationship can move forward. I also enjoy working with couples who are not in crisis, but want greater closeness, emotional safety, intimacy, and depth. I also work with individuals around relationships, ADHD and neurodivergence, self-worth, anxiety, depression, sexuality, intimacy, identity, spiritual questions, life transitions, and the challenge of integrating the different parts of ourselves into a more satisfying life. I have been counseling individuals, couples, families, and groups since 2007. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Maryland, Washington, DC, and California, and I am approved by Maryland to provide clinical supervision to therapists in training. My approach is evidence-based, but I also believe therapy should feel human. You should not feel like a diagnosis, a checklist, or a problem to be fixed. Good therapy should involve curiosity, honesty, compassion, challenge, and real engagement. I want to understand not only what is happening in your life, but also what it means to you, and what kind of life and relationships you want to create. Because I am also a former pastor, I can integrate faith and spirituality into therapy for clients who want that. For some people, faith is a central source of meaning, hope, identity, and strength. For others, religion may be complicated, painful, or not important at all. You do not need to share my beliefs, or hold any religious beliefs, to feel welcome here. I work with people of many faiths, backgrounds, identities, cultures, relationship experiences, and life choices. My goal is not to impose my worldview on you, but to understand yours and help you live more fully in alignment with what matters to you. Outside the therapy room, I have been married for nearly two decades, and I am the father of two boys. I understand personally that relationships do not happen in a laboratory. Marriage, parenting, work, stress, health, sex, money, faith, family history, and ordinary exhaustion all interact in real life. If you are looking for a therapist who will go deeper than surface-level advice, who understands the complexity of relationships, and who will engage you with warmth, honesty, and respect, I would be glad to work with you. Whether you are trying to repair a relationship, deepen one that is already good, rediscover intimacy, understand yourself better, heal from something painful, or simply become more fully who you are, I believe there are treasures within you worth discovering.