About Rob
A native New Yorker, I packed up my car with my wife and dog in 2010 and headed west. My general response when asked what brought me to Colorado is "boredom", which is honestly the majority of the story. I was born, raised, and lived in New York all the way through graduate school, which left me feeling it was time for a bigger change. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, get a better sense of who I wanted to be, and what brings meaning and purpose to my life. Colorado was the first stop for us and the culture, lifestyle, and natural beauty that lends to all those outdoorsy things people love to do here, essentially made it our last stop. Since then we've added a second dog and two boys to our family.
The prospect of trying to successfully raise two boys into successful men added an extra layer of passion to my work and career. This was two fold, on one hand striving to perpetually deepen my knowledge and expand my skills to set a good example for my boys, while on the other adding a special focus to my practice to help men navigate modern masculinity. I've always had a deep interest in psychology, psychotherapy, and human behavior, but adding a deep personal interest in how I practice day in and day out has helped build a practice strongly aligned with my values. Improving valued living is always one of the aims of how I work therapeutically, so this means I'm not just employing interventions I read in a textbook, I'm also "practice what I preach". I didn't want this section to read like my resume, but I also don't want to give the impression that therapy with me is loosely organized life advice and me blubbering on about myself. I practice from a model that is scientifically informed and evidence based. Specifically a cornerstone of my approach is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or ACT for short). ACT is a treatment approach with more than 30 years of research behind it and has been successful in alleviating symptoms in a variety of settings and populations (if you are interested there are some more technical links below). I don't want to give you a set of skills to "do x when y happens" because I don't think life works that way, it has a way of throwing curveballs where suddenly "x" doesn't work as well as it used to. My approach is to work with you to build a sustainable system of breaking old, unhelpful patterns and being the man you really want to be. This puts you in a position to respond flexibly enough to just about any curveball that comes your way instead of falling back into old, unhelpful patterns.
This was an outtake, but since a big part of therapy is being candid, here it is.
The dry academic stuff.
I received my Bachelors degree from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY in 2004 as a member of the Psy Chi International Honor Society in Psychology. I went on to complete my Masters degree at Sage College in Troy, NY in 2007, again graduating with honors. After completing my degrees I have continued to engage in a variety of education and professional development activities. Most notably I have completed a number of foundational and advanced trainings in ACT and have also completed level I and level II trainings for EMDR. I am a member of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science.