Practice information:

I am a Psychologist registered in British Columbia (CPBC #1903) and the State of Washington. Currently I am an Assistant Professor at Trinity Western University, where I serve as a core faculty member in the MA in Counselling Psychology Program. I am the co-founder of Altus Psychological Services, a private practice in Langley, BC, where I treat a variety of psychological conditions in a spiritually-sensitive context.  My background includes experience as a psychologist in Chicago, Illinois, where I directed the Sexual Health Program of Meier Clinics Foundation and was the clinical supervisor of DuPage Community Clinic, an innovative grassroots-supported free clinic serving the uninsured poor of western Chicago. I was also the program psychologist for Back in Motion, a multidisciplinary rehabilitation clinic in Surrey, BC. I am published in the research literature and have presented at conferences across North America in the areas of sexual health, occupational health, and addiction.

I enjoy working with individuals and couples, and see my work as a partnership with my clients to help them reach their goals. I believe every client has a tensile strength and resilience that belies their distress, and my role is to bring their internal resources into focus. My philosophy is to empower clients and equip them with skills that will outlast their time in therapy. Towards that end, I employ an integration of cognitive-behavioural, mindfulness, psychodynamic and existential approaches. I move across these orientations flexibly and comfortably, seeing them as providing a diverse set of tools to address the problem at hand. In my view, being dogmatic about therapeutic orientation is equivalent to using a single tool to fix all problems. Imagine using a hammer to fix a leaky faucet.

A distinctive of my approach lies in the fact that I am a Christian. The practice of psychotherapy is never value-neutral; even the most ostensibly “objective” of counsellors must possess certain irreducible value propositions—even atheism or secular humanism are value systems that cannot be proven “right” one way or another. As such, I believe it would be simply honest to acknowledge the fact that I am a psychologist who holds to the worldview of the Christian faith. Consequently, many Christian clients and clergy choose to work with me because they are seeking a psychologist who can help them with their problems within a faith-affirming context. At the same time, the therapeutic atmosphere I facilitate, while spiritually sensitive, is non-religious so that clients of other faiths, as well as non-religious clients, feel extremely comfortable working with me. I would say that approximately half of my clientele is non-Christian.

Wherever you are on your journey, it would be my privilege to help you or at least recommend more suitable professionals or resources if I am not able to assist you. Whether or not you choose to invite me to join part of your journey, I wish you strength and peace as you keep discovering and growing.