Thomas Luttrell, PhD, LCMFT, LMFT

Burtonsville, Maryland

VerifiedTelehealth Available

Professions: Counselor, Marriage & Family Therapist, Psychotherapist

Languages: English

My Approach to Therapy

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.

My Practice & Services

*HigherChange exists to help people create deeper, more meaningful change in their lives and relationships.* We provide whole-person counseling and coaching for individuals, couples, and families. Rather than focusing on only one part of your life, we recognize that emotional health, relationships, physical well-being, sexuality, spirituality, work, family, and personal purpose often affect one another. Our services include individual and couples therapy, relationship and intimacy work, therapy for sexual issues, life and health coaching, business coaching, and Christian counseling and marriage therapy for clients who want faith integrated into their care. At the heart of HigherChange is a simple philosophy: *Acceptance First.* We believe meaningful growth begins with creating a safe place where you can be understood and accepted as you are, not judged for where you have been or pressured to become someone else. From that foundation, we help you identify what matters most to you and work toward genuine, lasting change. HigherChange was founded by Dr. Tom, a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist, professional coach, and PhD-trained relationship specialist, together with his wife, Hannah. Our faith shapes our commitment to grace, compassion, dignity, and healing. We are followers of Jesus Christ, whose life modeled healing love toward people from every walk of life. At the same time, *you do not need to be Christian, or religious at all, to feel at home here.* HigherChange welcomes people of all faiths and no faith, as well as people from diverse cultures, identities, backgrounds, relationships, and ways of life. We do not impose our beliefs on our clients. Instead, we seek to understand your values, beliefs, goals, and lived experience, and we work within the worldview that is meaningful to you. Therapy and personal growth can be challenging, rewarding, uncomfortable, hopeful, and sometimes even surprising. You do not have to navigate that journey alone. We would be honored to walk alongside you as you pursue healthier relationships, greater self-understanding, deeper connection, and your own *HigherChange*.

Why Specialized Couples Therapy Matters

**Couples therapy is not simply individual therapy with two people in the room.** Many excellent therapists are primarily trained to understand and treat individuals and may also offer couples counseling. My training is specifically in **Marriage and Family Therapy**, which means I was trained to understand people not only as individuals, but as part of relationship and family systems. I hold a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy, and couples and relationship work has been a major focus of my clinical practice for more than 15 years. Why does that matter? When two people are hurting, it can be tempting to focus on who started the argument, who communicated badly, or which partner needs to change. But couples often become caught in patterns that neither person consciously created and that neither person can fix alone. One partner pursues while the other withdraws. Criticism produces defensiveness, which produces more criticism. Sexual rejection creates hurt, which creates pressure, which creates even more distance. Addiction, ADHD, anxiety, family history, attachment wounds, culture, faith, parenting, and sexuality may all become woven into the same relational system. If we treat only the two individuals, we can miss what is happening **between them**. My job is not to identify the villain in the relationship. It is to understand the cycle, help both partners recognize what happens underneath their reactions, and create a space where each person can become more accessible, responsive, honest, and connected. Sometimes one partner needs to change. Usually both do. But the ultimate goal is not simply two healthier individuals. It is a healthier relationship.

What I Mean by Acceptance First

A lot of people come to therapy wanting to change something about themselves or someone they love. That makes perfect sense. But I have learned something paradoxical over the years: *people often change most deeply when they no longer feel that acceptance depends upon changing first.* That is what I mean by *Acceptance First*. Acceptance is not approval of everything we do. It is not passivity, avoidance, or pretending that unhealthy behavior is okay. It means beginning with the dignity and worth of the person before deciding what needs to change. When people feel judged, they usually become defensive, ashamed, secretive, or resistant. When they feel genuinely understood, something different becomes possible. They can become curious about themselves. They can tell the truth. They can look at painful patterns without having to protect themselves from the person sitting across from them. That is why I stopped thinking of myself primarily as a change agent and began thinking of myself as a *grace agent*. I certainly hope change happens—that is usually why people come to see me. But I do not believe I can force another human being to change. My role is to create the kind of relationship in which honesty, insight, responsibility, courage, and ultimately change have room to emerge. Acceptance comes first. Change often follows.

Specific Issue(s) I'm Skilled at Helping With

I have extensive experience helping individuals and couples with a wide range of relationship and intimacy concerns, including: • Couples affected by ADHD, anxiety, addiction, or other challenges that place stress on the relationship • Neurodiverse couples navigating ADHD-related differences in communication, organization, emotional regulation, or intimacy • Couples recovering from infidelity, betrayal, or major breaches of trust • Men dealing with compulsive sexual behavior, pornography concerns, infidelity, shame, or challenges involving sexuality and intimacy • Married and cohabiting couples experiencing conflict, emotional distance, or relationship distress • Engaged couples seeking premarital counseling and preparation for marriage • Couples navigating sexual concerns, differences in desire, intimacy difficulties, sexual communication, or changes in their sexual relationship • Couples struggling with recurring conflict, communication breakdowns, trust injuries, and emotional disconnection In addition to psychotherapy, I provide professional coaching in areas such as relationships and dating, health and wellness, business and leadership, intimacy, personal growth, and spirituality. My work is especially focused on helping people understand the deeper patterns beneath the problem—not simply managing the latest argument or symptom. Whether the issue involves communication, sex, trust, ADHD, faith, or major life changes, I help clients understand how the different parts of their lives and relationships interact so they can create more meaningful and lasting change.

How Psychotherapy Can Help

Psychotherapy can help because sometimes we are simply too close to our own lives to see the patterns clearly. We know something hurts. We know the same argument keeps happening, the same fear keeps returning, or the same part of ourselves keeps getting in the way. We may even understand some of it intellectually. But knowing that something is wrong is not always the same as understanding why—or knowing how to change it. That is where therapy can become powerful. I believe meaningful change begins with **Acceptance First**. That does not mean resigning yourself to things that are unhealthy or painful, and it does not mean excusing harmful patterns. It means creating enough safety and honesty to understand yourself without shame. When people stop spending so much energy judging, hiding from, or fighting themselves, they often become much more able to look honestly at what needs to change. Good therapy goes deeper than advice. It helps uncover the meaning beneath our symptoms, the patterns beneath our relationships, and the parts of ourselves we may have ignored, rejected, or learned to hide. Sometimes the thing you dislike most about yourself actually began as an attempt to survive, protect yourself, stay connected, or avoid being hurt. Sometimes the conflict in a relationship is not really about dishes, sex, money, parenting, or who forgot to text back. Those may be the battlegrounds, but there is usually something deeper happening underneath. Psychotherapy gives us a place to become curious about the patterns we keep repeating, the emotions we keep avoiding, the stories we have learned to believe about ourselves, and the ways our past continues to show up in our present. When we understand those things with compassion instead of shame, we gain more freedom to choose something different. I do not see therapy as a process of fixing defective people. I see it as a process of helping people rediscover what has become buried. That is part of why I sometimes call my approach **Treasure Therapy**. Beneath the stress, disappointment, conflict, fear, and old wounds, there are often strengths, longings, values, and parts of yourself that have been overlooked for a long time. Therapy can help you discover those treasures and reconnect with the person you want to be. My goal is not to turn you into somebody else. It is to help you become more fully yourself—more connected, more intentional, more able to love and be loved, and more free to live according to what genuinely matters to you. Therapy cannot erase everything that has happened to us. But it can change the way we understand it, carry it, and move forward from it. And sometimes, that changes almost everything.

My Role as a Therapist

I no longer think of myself primarily as a *change agent*. I think of myself as a *grace agent*. People usually come to therapy because they want something to change—and that makes sense. They want the anxiety to ease, the relationship to improve, the conflict to stop, the shame to loosen its grip, or life to finally feel different. But over the years, I have learned that I cannot force change in another person. In fact, the harder we try to force change, the more people often feel judged, pressured, or misunderstood. So my role is not to push you into becoming who I think you should be. My role is to create a space where you can be deeply understood, accepted, challenged honestly, and invited to see yourself and your relationships more clearly. That is what I mean by being a *grace agent*. Grace, to me, is not passivity. It does not mean pretending harmful behavior is okay or avoiding difficult truths. Grace creates enough safety for truth to be faced without shame. It allows us to look at the parts of ourselves we would rather hide and ask, with curiosity instead of condemnation, “What is happening here? What is this trying to protect? And what would a healthier way forward look like?” Ironically, I have found that when I stop trying to change people, change often becomes more possible. My job is to walk alongside you, help you recognize patterns you may not be able to see from inside your own story, offer perspective and tools, and create the kind of honest therapeutic relationship where growth can happen. You remain the author of your life. I am not here to rewrite your story for you. I am here to help you read it more clearly, understand it more compassionately, and discover what you want the next chapter to become.

My Therapy Focus

My primary therapy focus is on *relationships—especially couples, intimacy, and the deeper patterns that shape how people connect with one another.* For more than 15 years, couples work has been one of the central areas of my practice. I help couples who feel stuck in repetitive conflict, emotionally disconnected, sexually distant, mistrustful, overwhelmed by ADHD or anxiety, or unsure how to find their way back to one another. I also work with engaged couples, cohabiting couples, couples rebuilding after infidelity or betrayal, and couples who are doing relatively well but want a deeper and more satisfying relationship. Because my training is specifically in Marriage and Family Therapy, I do not approach couples therapy as simply individual therapy with two people in the room. I pay attention to the relationship itself as a living system—the cycles, attachment patterns, family histories, emotional triggers, communication habits, intimacy dynamics, and unspoken meanings that develop between two people over time. I am also especially interested in the intersection of *ADHD, neurodivergence, relationships, sexuality, and intimacy.* These issues often overlap in ways that are easy to misunderstand. What gets interpreted as laziness may actually involve executive-function difficulty. What feels like rejection may sometimes be overwhelm. What looks like a sexual problem may actually involve stress, attachment, shame, resentment, medical issues, or differences in desire. I try to understand the whole picture rather than reducing people to a single symptom. With individuals, I often work around relationships, self-worth, anxiety, depression, compulsive sexual behavior, infidelity, spirituality, identity, life transitions, and the struggle to become more fully oneself. Across all of this, my focus is not simply on reducing symptoms. I want to help people understand the deeper story beneath what is happening, strengthen the relationships that matter most, and create change that feels meaningful and sustainable. My work is grounded in *Acceptance First*. I believe people grow best when they feel safe enough to be honest, accepted enough to stop hiding, and supported enough to take meaningful risks toward change. That is the kind of therapy I try to provide.

Expertise & Specialties

Age Groups I Work With

TeensAdultsElders

Groups I Work With

I’m a couples and relationship specialist with a PhD in marriage and family therapy. I help people build deeper connection, authentic growth, and lasting change. I welcome clients from a wide range of backgrounds, identities, cultures, faith traditions, and relationship experiences. I’m especially comfortable working with: • Interracial and intercultural couples • Conservative Christians, including evangelical Christians, Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and Seventh-day Adventists • People of any faith tradition, including Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and other religious backgrounds • Atheist, agnostic, spiritual-but-not-religious, and nonreligious clients • Sex-positive clients and communities, including BDSM and kink • Couples and individuals navigating differences in culture, faith, sexuality, intimacy, or values You do not need to share my beliefs, background, or lifestyle to feel welcome in my practice. My role is to understand your world, respect your values, and help you pursue the kind of life and relationships that are meaningful to you.

Therapy Services & Specialties

Clinical SupervisionFamily Therapy Group Therapy Individual Therapy & Counseling Marriage, Couples, or Relationship Counseling Pastoral Counseling Premarital Counseling Telehealth

Concerns & Challenges Addressed

Addictions and CompulsionsAdjusting to Change / Life TransitionsAgoraphobiaAnxietyAttachment IssuesBreakupCompulsive Spending / ShoppingControl Issues

Therapeutic Approaches & Evidence-Based Methods

Contemplative PsychotherapyDrama TherapyEmotion Focused Couples TherapyEmotionally Focused Couples TherapyEmotionally Focused TherapyExistential PsychotherapyExpressive Arts TherapyFamily Systems Therapy

Industries & Communities

Entertainment IndustryFirst Responder/Medical ProfessionalsEducationSelf-Employed and Freelance ProfessionalsBIPOCUnion First