Who I work with
Service members, veterans, and the people who hold the clearances
Being specific about who this practice is for is a service, not a limitation. If you are not in this list, I would rather say so and point you somewhere better.
Veterans and service members
Active duty, guard and reserve, and anyone who has separated. Combat and non-combat. I will not need you to translate a PCS, a deployment cycle, or what a company command actually involves.
The national security community
Cleared professionals, intelligence community, and defence civilians and contractors. If part of what makes this hard is that you cannot talk about most of your working life, that is a workable constraint rather than a dealbreaker.
Military spouses and families
The person who held everything together during the deployments and then found there was no room to fall apart afterwards.
First responders
Law enforcement, fire and EMS. Different culture, very similar structure — cumulative exposure, a professional identity built on being the one who copes, and a real cost to being seen struggling.
What I treat
- PTSD and trauma, single-incident and cumulative, using CPT as the primary protocol
- Moral injury — the category that guilt and shame belong to when “symptoms” is the wrong word for it
- Anxiety and depression, particularly where they sit on top of an untreated trauma history
- Transition and identity after leaving service, which is not a disorder but is frequently the thing actually going on
What I don’t treat
I am not the right clinician for active substance dependence needing detox or a higher level of care, for eating disorders requiring medical monitoring, for psychotic disorders needing a treatment team, or for court-ordered evaluations and custody work. I do not prescribe medication.
If you contact me and one of those is the real issue, I will tell you in the consult and I will try to point you at someone appropriate. Wasting your time and money to find out in session four is the worse outcome.
One requirement, and it’s not negotiable
I am licensed in the Commonwealth of Virginia. That means you need to be physically located in Virginia at the time of each appointment — not just a Virginia resident on paper. Working at the Pentagon and living in Arlington is fine. Living in DC or Maryland is not, and neither is joining a session from a hotel in another state. I will ask you to confirm your location at the start of every session. It is a licensure rule, it applies to every clinician, and I would rather be clear about it now than cancel on you later.
Fifteen minutes, no charge, no commitment.
We talk about what brought you here and whether this is the right fit. If it isn’t, I will tell you and point you somewhere better.