About Me

A little about the person behind the practice.

I’ve been a licensed psychologist in independent practice for 20 years. My graduate training was in Counseling Psychology — a field grounded in respect for individual differences and less focused on diagnosis than on understanding the whole person. That orientation has shaped everything about how I practice.

I completed my undergraduate work at the University of Maryland, where I majored in Psychology and Multicultural Studies, and went on to earn my master’s and Ph.D. at the University of Florida. But the education that has mattered most to my clinical work has been the life I’ve lived alongside it.

I’m a gay man who has been openly gay for nearly 40 years. Long before I had a private practice, I was president of my university’s LGBTQ student organization and facilitated a gay men’s discussion group at Washington DC’s LGBTQ community center. After graduate school brought me to Houston, I became an active member of the local leather and Levi community — serving as president of a Houston leather club for three years, and competing in and winning leather title contests at the state level. That history isn’t incidental to my work. It’s part of why clients from sexual minority communities — and particularly from leather, kink, and BDSM communities — don’t have to spend their first several sessions orienting me.

The thread running through all of it is this: I have spent my adult life in communities that exist at the margins of mainstream culture, and I’ve built a practice around serving people who live there.

That includes people who are neurodivergent, gender nonconforming, LGBTQ+, kinky, non-monogamous, or practicing minority spiritual traditions — and people who are simply living lives that don’t fit the default template. What these clients often share is a history of not quite fitting, including sometimes in therapy. I take that seriously.

My approach is direct and engaged. I don’t think good therapy requires a therapist who remains carefully neutral or withholds themselves entirely from the room. I bring my perspective, I’ll challenge you when that’s useful, and I’ll work with you rather than simply reflecting your experience back at you. Validation has its place, but it isn’t the whole job.

Outside the office, I’m a theatergoer, a stand-up comedy fan, an amateur student of American history and Constitutional law, and an occasional crafter. I watch NASCAR. I have an extensive collection of Levi 501s. And I share my home with two cats, who have strong opinions about most things, but very little interest in my professional accomplishments.