More than sixteen years.
Counseling, program development, and the long view.
I have spent more than sixteen years working at the intersection of addiction, trauma, and human transformation — across residential, outpatient, IOP, and PHP settings, and across roles that range from individual clinical work to national program development.
I am very relational in my work and with my clients. Direct without being cold. Warm without being soft. The clients who come to me tend to be people who have already tried the version of therapy that does not push back, and have found it insufficient.
Today.
I practice at Matone Counseling in Asheville, where I carry a full caseload of clients navigating substance use, mental health, and existential terrain. I work across insurance, Medicaid, and sliding-scale structures so that cost is rarely the reason someone cannot do this work. My approach draws from narrative therapy, motivational interviewing, CBT, REBT, brief solution-focused work, and depth-oriented frameworks adapted to the specific person in front of me.
In November 2026 I will be launching Deepening Counseling as a solo practice, building on the clinical, group, coaching, and consulting offerings described elsewhere on this site.
The places that
shaped the work.
My clinical formation took shape across several places that matter. At The Meadows in Wickenburg, Arizona, I trained directly under Pia Mellody — a pioneer in developmental trauma and post-induction therapy — facilitating intensive psychodrama and gestalt-format work for clients with complex trauma and co-occurring substance use disorders.
At UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Medicine, I was embedded in the Department of Psychiatry to build clinical programming for low-income and homeless populations with complex mental health and SUD presentations. I owned the curriculum, the delivery, and the outcome tracking — designing a relapse prevention, life skills, and community resource program from the ground up, supervising peer support specialists, and delivering staff training on trauma and relapse prevention.
Before that, at Pavillon International in Mill Spring, North Carolina, I directed the national aftercare referral network for a residential treatment program — coordinating placements with therapists, IOP and PHP programs, medical providers, and recovery residences across the country, and managing the clinical handoff and continuity-of-care processes that determine whether the transition from intensive treatment actually holds.
My earliest clinical work was in community-based recovery coaching and peer support in St. Paul, Minnesota — supporting clients moving from inpatient treatment back into community life. That foundation still informs how I think about recovery: as a community problem with a clinical core, not the other way around.
A pause that
changed the work.
From 2015 to 2021 I stepped away from full-time clinical work to care for a terminally ill parent, contributing to a family industrial business during that period. Returning to clinical practice after that experience changed what I bring to the work — particularly with clients facing grief, caregiving fatigue, and the kind of identity shifts that life rearranges without asking.
Training and
formation.
Graduate
- M.S. Substance Abuse & Mental Health CounselingEast Carolina University · 2012–2013
Graduate Certificates: Vocational Evaluation · Rehabilitation Counseling - M.A. Transpersonal PsychologyNaropa University · 2005–2007
Undergraduate
- B.A. Communications & TheologyXavier University · 1995–2000
Credentials.
Active Licensure
- LCMHC (expected July 2026)North Carolina Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors
- LCMHCA #A17363NC Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors · 2022
- LCAS #20665NC Substance Abuse Professional Practice Board · 2014
Specialty Training
- CSAT-CandidateIITAP, Certified Sex Addiction Therapy training (Module 1 completed)
- The Meadows / Pia MellodyInner Child Psychodrama, Developmental Trauma, Post-Induction Therapy
- Gorski CENAPSRelapse Prevention Therapy Model
What this
actually looks like.
My approach draws from depth psychology, existential frameworks, and the clinical models I have been trained in — Mellody's developmental trauma model, Carnes' sex addiction framework, Gorski's CENAPS relapse prevention model, and Frankl's and Yalom's existential traditions.
What that means in practice: the work is relational. I do not stay neutral on the questions that matter. I will tell you what I see, what I think, and what I think you might be avoiding. I will be wrong sometimes, and I will say so. The point of the work is not for me to perform expertise. The point is for you to do the thing you came here to do.
Ready to talk?
Free 15-minute consultation. No charge for the first conversation.