James has a master’s from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s from the University of Central Oklahoma and is a licensed professional counselor. After many years in the field of mental health, James has extensive experience in inpatient, outpatient, and partial hospitalization settings. Topics/disorders that he has been able to treat from a trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy perspective include anger, anxiety, depression, fear, OCD, forgiveness, boundaries in interpersonal relationships, communication, perfectionism, trauma exposure, urges, coping skills, low self-esteem, warning signs, triggers, values, mindfulness, and the importance of sleep to name a few.

Therapy is just like building a muscle. Through repetition, education, understanding, and situational practice the muscle almost becomes instinctual where goals and purpose follow. How do you heal from your past if you can’t get closure from the ones that wronged you? Sometimes it takes more than education to answer those questions. The more that we ignore emotions, and what they are trying to tell us the more we get burned.

Healing wounds takes more time, but gaining independence from the healing process is worth everything the wound produced in the first place. Through our weakness, we find strength.