Welcome.  Thanks for visiting. 

The purpose of this site is to let people know what I do.  I deliver psychotherapy at CMHA Hamilton (for CMHA clients) and I offer the same service privately through Healing Pathways Counselling reachable here.

I also deliver SMART (Self Management And Recovery Training) and write about ideas and fictional characters, both of which concern under/standings via philosophy and psychology.  Whether you’re looking for therapy, SMART counselling, a blog post, or the latest fiction, the tabs are at the top of the page (laptop) or under the three-line list pull down menu (phones & tablets). 

What might you wish to know about me?  I’ve spent the vast majority of my life on the north shore of Lake Ontario in Oakville, (just west of Toronto) though I visit points east (Kingston and Prince Edward County) as often as time permits.  I’m a middle-aged, married man with two young adult children, two Scotch dogs, and two cats.  I grew up playing music in the ‘70s, hanging out with broadly varied groups of people, and fell in love with the world of structure, beauty, and ideas thanks to my father, some great teachers, and a lot of reading, looking, and listening.

I trained as a carpenter, general contractor, and architect and performed one or more of those functions until the joy disappeared.  I then took up writing and returned to university to complete a double in philosophy and psychology; a degree I’d started some four decades earlier.  I recently completed a masters in counselling psychology and have finished most of a diploma in professional addiction studies.

Probably because I grew up around addiction and mental illness, my interest has been there for a while.   The major question that drives me today is How do people change?  To me, this involves both philosophical and psychological ideas (though not always formal ones). 

For more on my transition to mental health work, here’s a recent interview: