The Journey to Understanding

After spending almost two decades in business and technology, I discovered my true calling lies in helping people build more authentic, fulfilling relationships with themselves and others. My journey to becoming a therapist began at the Cornell Hotel School, where I was drawn to hospitality's fundamental orientation toward service and human connection.

My career path took me through loyalty marketing for Las Vegas casinos, where I developed insights into human motivation and what drives people's choices and attachments. Later, I led teams of people who sold software to hotels and restaurants. This continued to help me understand what makes people tick and how they form connections.

Over time, I became increasingly uncomfortable with marketing's disingenuous nature - making products appear different or better than they actually are. I realized that if something truly serves people's needs, it shouldn't require manipulation to be desirable. This led me to pivot toward using my understanding of human nature to genuinely help people improve their lives.

Professional Training

I earned my Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University, training at the Community Health Resource Center in San Francisco and working with the LGBTQ+ community at the Pacific Center for Human Growth in Berkeley. I'm a registered California Associate Clinical Social Worker (ASW131505) specializing in interpersonal psychotherapy for individuals, partnerships, and groups.

Personal Perspective

As a gay, polyamorous individual, I understand the unique challenges of navigating identity, relationships, and belonging in a world that doesn't always embrace diversity. My own experiences with insider-outsider status have cultivated sensitivity to how privilege operates and how marginalization affects our capacity for authentic connection.

The multifaceted nature of my identity - simultaneously holding dominant and marginalized positions - uniquely positions me to understand how power dynamics manifest in relationships. I've experienced both the automatic trust afforded to my presentation and the vulnerability of hiding core aspects of self.

Why Interpersonal Psychology

My practice is grounded in Interpersonal Psychology, drawing from Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology and the pioneering work of Dossie Easton, co-author of The Ethical Slut. I believe that all human struggles are fundamentally interpersonal relationship problems, whether they involve romantic partners, family members, friends, colleagues, or our relationship with ourselves.

I reject deterministic thinking that our past dictates our future. While our experiences influence us, it's not events themselves that determine who we become, but our perception of those events and the meaning we assign to them. My practice is teleological rather than etiological - I'm more interested in understanding what you're moving toward than analyzing what might be holding you back.