ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS

Perhaps it may be helpful to tell you a little bit about my style of therapy. Whenever someone goes to therapy they encounter both the person of the therapist as well as the therapist’s skills. Who I am as a person is impacted partly by my view of the world and how people change.

My current style of therapy is influenced most by the humanistic, transpersonal, and psychodynamic traditions of counseling and psychotherapy. I believe that all people have a natural tendency to grow and develop. Therapy in part is about facilitating the natural evolution of the individual. I also believe that our past and current relationships shape how we interact with others and ourselves. Sometimes people become stuck relating to the world in a way that time has

passed. We attempt to fix, often unconsciously in our current relationships, things that went wrong in previous ones. Additionally, it is not so much the experiences that we have had in the past, either good or bad that influence us as much as the unique personal meaning that we construct in an attempt to understand our lives. I also believe that there is a spiritual aspect of life, growth, change, and therapy.

I earned my B.A. degree in psychology from Hope College and my M.A. degree in counseling psychology from Western Michigan University. I have been working in private practice since March of 2021. Previously I worked for nine years at Allegan County Community Mental Health as a clinician and case manager. Prior to it, I worked for three years as a therapist providing mental health and substance abuse counseling through non-profit organizations in Grand Rapids. The Michigan Certification Board for Addiction Professionals has granted me the Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor credential. I am also certified in reality therapy by the William Glasser Institute.