Andrew Wood, Licensed Mental Health Counselor

In the twenty years I've been doing this, I've found that the most successful outcomes include a healthy mixture of confronting difficult experiences, celebrating wins, and occasionally laughing at our predicaments. Life can be quite serious and heartbreaking at times, and I'll never lose sight of that. In response to this, though, I've adopted a style where I invite people to play with some of the pieces that make up their lives. We can't change the facts, but we can sometimes think and feel differently about them. Starting therapy can be intimidating; many of the people I have worked with expressed relief to discover that they would not be expected to talk at someone who doesn't say anything. I think most people find me to be engaging and approachable. Sometimes we talk about the past, sometimes we talk about the challenges of the week, sometimes we talk about concerns for the future, and sometimes we talk about what's good on Netflix. In general, my goal is to be as open and as transparent as possible, and to take feedback. My hope is that this allows us to find the right pace and tone that makes the work feel rich and productive.