Whole Story is a place and a practice. The place is a meeting room for healing using a range of therapeutic approaches. The practice is an integration of Life Coaching, Depth Psychotherapy, and Spiritual Unfoldment.

In this place and through my practice, I assist adults caught in emotional suffering or numbness during times of confusion and transition. While some of my clients arrive with symptoms of anxiety or depression and some with specific love, work, or family issues; others are motivated by a desire to understand and deepen their personal search for a meaningful life of deep aliveness and belonging. 

How I arrived at this place and this practice was through academic and professional training including two Masters of Arts degrees, the first in Communication Studies from Northwestern University in 1988, and the second in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in 2005. I have also received professional training in different approaches for helping the mind-body resolve traumatic patterns that keep ones nervous system trapped in the past. I have learned to help others find inner stability and ease through four decades of study and practice of mindfulness disciplines (secular as well as Buddhist and Christian), including certification by Naropa University as a Mindfulness Instructor. Another important turn in my path was spending decades as a scholar, creator, and performer of stories. Through my work with individual’s life stories, I learned how we can recognize and free ourselves from stuckness in old stories that trap us in out-dated perceptions and strategies for living. 

All the studies and training I’ve done have been fueled by my own search for freedom from suffering. One place to begin that story is in 1984 when I underwent three transformative experiences. First I was trained in a community approach to counseling (ReEvaluation Counseling) in which individuals take turns helping each other to release old emotional pain so as to be able to think more clearly in the present. This training included education in not only individual and family sources of wounding but also the many impacts of social oppression (racism, sexism, age-ism, hetero-sexism and so on) on an individual’s consciousness. Second, I began psychotherapy with a therapist trained to work transpersonally, which is to say trained to address the whole human being – mind, body, heart, and spirit. And third, I was introduced to depth psycho-spiritual inner work that awakened a dormant part of me such that I now knew with certainly that it was possible to live from a more full-hearted, authentic center of being.

My academic background includes two M.A. (Masters of Arts) degrees, the first in Communication Studies from Northwestern University in 1988, and the second in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in 2005.  I also spent a year on a fellowship at the University of Texas (1989-90) doing doctoral research into the healing potential of re-visioning one’s life story.  I have taught classes and done keynotes on this topic at the National Storytelling Conference, for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors, and at universities, churches, and conferences.

Beyond my formal education, my theoretical approach integrates my training and experience in Client-Centered, Narrative, and Transpersonal psychotherapies.

I first learned Client-Centered approaches beginning in 1984 through training in and practice of an approach to counseling (ReEvaluation Counseling) in which individuals take turns helping each other to release old emotional pain so as to be able to think more clearly in present time.  

The Narrative part of my orientation is based on several decades of professional work as a playwright, story creator and storyteller, as well as the study of narrative approaches to healing life-stories.

My Transpersonal orientation is founded on over three decades of study and practice of mindfulness disciplines (Buddhist and Christian), including certification by Naropa University as a Mindfulness Instructor and my ongoing teaching at Naropa University as an Adjunct Faculty Member teaching Psychology of Meditation and Mindfulness courses.