About John

How I got here

I grew up in Ohio and North Carolina, then moved to Northern California at thirteen. I hold a bachelor’s in psychology from New College of California and a master’s in counseling psychology from John F. Kennedy University (2001). My early clinical years were in residential behavioral health, where I went on to direct a mental health rehabilitation program at Anka Behavioral Health in Camarillo: running the budget, training staff and rebuilding a struggling program into a stable one. That work is where I learned that a treatment team’s day-to-day habits matter as much as the model on paper.

In 2014 I opened what became Bay Area Therapy Group, now a group practice across Concord, Berkeley and Antioch, while also supervising clinical interns for county and nonprofit mental health programs in the East Bay. Curiosity about how the brain holds trauma led me to EMDR, then to the Flash Technique, then to DBT and further trauma-specific training. Since 2018 I’ve also directed development of a virtual reality EMDR protocol, building the technology I now use with clients myself.

How I work

I’m direct, warm and not passive. Therapy that only listens can feel like circling the same block; I want sessions to change something. That usually means a mix of memory reprocessing (EMDR, Flash), skills (CBT) and, when it matters, a slower look at the relational patterns you learned early (object relations). We track disturbance and symptoms so you know whether it’s working.

My practice is explicitly affirming of LGBTQ+, polyamorous and kink communities, and I have long experience with chronic mental illness, dissociation, and the particular weight carried by first responders, veterans and people living with serious medical illness. I refer out for couples work.