You might like to know a bit about my background and how I came to be a marriage counselor. (Go to this page for a more detailed view of my professional experience.)
I’m one of those folks who essentially knew what I’d be doing for a career before I graduated from high school. Well almost. I did briefly consider becoming a lawyer or minister during my first year of college.
But, counseling always had the inside track. I can’t explain why. I’d never actually had any experience with counseling as a child and no one in my family was remotely involved with the field. So, I suppose becoming a counselor was mostly a natural extension of my basic temperament and my interest in people, which had been with me since childhood.
My first experience providing counseling was in 1974 as a volunteer counselor at a clinic helping teens arrested for minor crimes. I volunteered several hours each week during the last 2 years of earning my Bachelors of Psychology. I stayed on with them after I graduated and became a trainer for new volunteers. And so began my career in counseling.
I spent the next several years counseling at various human service agencies and programs in both the public and private sectors. I found myself living in and loving Black Mountain, NC, but after 10 years I relocated to earn my Master degree in Counseling, which I completed in 1986.
After graduate school I spent 8 years working at a local Community Mental Health Center in Hendersonville, NC. But my heart kept calling me back to Black Mountain and the Swannanoa Valley. So I chose to make this area my home and opened my private practice in 1994 to offer counseling in Asheville. Over the past 20 years my practice has evolved and allowed me opportunities to provide individual and couple’s counseling, clinical supervision at therapeutic schools, and support for parents. As a consultant I’ve helped design programs serving special needs adolescents and provided personnel and efficiency guidance to small businesses.
But, couples’ and marriage counseling has always remained the most inspiring work for me. As I moved into the ‘fourth quarter’ of my career I decided to return to my greatest professional passion, which is supporting couples to have strong and mutually enriching marriages and relationships. In 2007 I began to actively redirect my private practice towards working full time as a marriage counselor and addressing the needs of married and committed couples… and renamed my practice Asheville Marriage Counseling.
