How I Can Help: Therapy for Couples, Trauma & Individuals in Columbia SC

Relationships don't fall apart all at once. More often it's a slow drifting — a gnawing distance, a cycle that once worked and then stopped being fruitful, a sudden rupture that exposed something that had been quietly building for years. Whether you're navigating the aftermath of infidelity, feeling the awful pull of growing apart, working through the complexity of consensual non-monogamy, or trying to restructure a parent-child relationship that no longer fits the generational dynamic you find yourself now occupying — the need for help can feel like an admission of failure. It isn't. It's usually the first honest thing either person has done in a while.
 

I work with couples and relationship structures of all kinds, using an emotionally-focused approach that gets underneath the conflict to what's actually driving it. We can work together in person in Columbia, SC or virtually across South Carolina.

Trauma affects not just your memories, but how you experience your own being, your connections to those close to you, and your internal sense of safety — creating triggering responses of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn/flop. My approach recognizes that trauma impacts each person differently and requires a pace and process that feels right for you.​ I work with adults and teens (ages 14+) in Columbia, SC, using evidence-based approaches and a calm, regulated empathy — because what happened to you matters, and so does how we approach it together.

Individual therapy is where we get to focus entirely on you — your story, your patterns, your relationship with yourself and with the people dearest to you. Depression, anxiety, sexual compatibility concerns, identity questions, and the accumulated weight of just living a complicated life all have a place here.
 

I work with men (and women) navigating threatened separation, midlife identity questions, and PTSD — including men who are skeptical of therapy but find, often to their own surprise, that it can really work. As a male therapist, I offer something specific: An understanding of maleness where we can collaboratively explore your world as the anxiety of therapy ebbs. I also work with partners of trauma survivors — people who love someone carrying deep wounds; and in doing so carry their own burdens quietly. An underserved and exhausted population, partners deserve relief.  It is available, and I want you to feel that from the moment we first speak. As a systemic therapist I believe we are fundamentally social creatures, and individual work always happens in the context of our relationships. If at any point I don't feel like the right fit for you, I'll tell you honestly and help you find someone who is.

This is  multifaceted, being non-verbal far more than the spoken words we usually consider. It is a smile, a sigh, a physical tightening, a laugh, a shared look into another's eyes - or it can be verbal in the full kaleidoscope from intimately connected to conflict ridden. Communication is usually the first victim of relational breakdown. We can re-imagine new connections and renegotiate existing patterns and define evolving boundaries. Lost connection, even infidelity, are fundamentally miscommunication, often lurking for a long time before rupturing. All of this generates substantial anxiety and, often, anger. We all, at times, find we need to explore new ways of being to move forward in ways which honor growth without repeating the deeply wounding past. Together, we can find a way forward that is genuinely your own.