A practical, direct way of working with people.

Background

I studied psychology and philosophy at Dalhousie, with a focus on neuroscience, computer science, and analytical philosophy. My final undergraduate paper was about whether machines could be conscious.

I trained clinically through UBC Counselling Services, working with high-functioning students whose lives looked composed and whose internal weather did not. I've also worked with founders, executives, and physicians: capable people quietly hitting the limits of what capability alone can solve. At the other end of the spectrum, I worked at Vancouver General Hospital's complex mental health division with people facing severe psychiatric concerns.

Those settings taught me very different things. More than anything, they taught me humility: how much I did not know, how carefully people need to be understood, and how much of the work is making room for people to keep learning.

What it's like to work with me

Warm. Direct. A bit sarcastic, if you're up for that. I laugh a lot. I'll push back when I think it'll be useful, and I won't when it won't.

I try to be genuinely client-led. This is your work, not mine. You set the pace, the subject, and the direction. I check in often, not as a procedural thing, but because if we're going somewhere you didn't actually want to go, I'd rather know about it now than three sessions in.

I'm fluent in the practical: behaviour chains, habit design, the mechanics of how a small change becomes a stable one. If your brain wants structure, I have plenty of it. I'm also fluent in the spiritual, existential, and philosophical registers. Meditation has shaped how I work. I've spent years with the Insight Meditation tradition and teachers like Gil Fronsdal, and Theravada Buddhism has shaped how I think about attention, suffering, and presence.

I see my own therapist on an ongoing basis. I also work with a clinical supervisor regularly: another counsellor who reviews my work and offers feedback. The evidence is clear that supervision leads to better client outcomes, and it keeps me accountable to keep improving as a clinician.

For more on how I think about the work, see the approach page.

Who I'm probably not the right fit for

If your central struggle is substance use, an eating disorder, OCD, or panic disorder, there are clinicians more specialised in those areas, and I'd want you to find them. I have deep respect for psychoanalytic and Jungian approaches, but that's not how I work either.

If what you need is someone to validate that the problem is someone else, I don't think this will be a fit. I believe that kind of work tends not to go anywhere, and I'd rather be upfront about it.

Outside of work

I grew up in North Vancouver. My wife and I are expecting our first child in August. I play soccer, lift, run trail races, and spend as much time as I can in the mountains.

I've owned eight Kindles. I use fountain pens and Leuchtturm notebooks. I think in systems. I experiment with AI daily. If you dropped me in the woods with a knife, I'd last a couple of months.

I mention all this because the version of me you meet in a session is the same one writing this. There isn't a separate clinician personality I switch into. The thinking is the same. The curiosity is the same. The willingness to be specific is the same.