Mike Cook

Everyone carries a story that needs to be heard — and told.

That belief is at the heart of my primary orientation: Narrative Therapy. I’ve witnessed the power people gain by telling and reshaping their stories. I am a Licensed Associate Counselor (LAC) with a master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and a focus on trauma. I look forward to engaging in individual, couples, and group therapy.

My life has been shaped by raising a non-traditional, same-sex, interracial family and by careers that immersed me in diverse communities and countercultural movements. Raised during the civil rights era, second-wave feminism, and the psychedelic 70s, I use a broad, nonjudgmental lens. I’m attuned to complex relationship dynamics often faced by LGBTQIA+ clients, and I know it can work.

Before becoming a therapist, I spent four decades teaching people to move through fear and thrive. From musicians and pilots to air traffic controllers, a common thread was helping trainees learn in environments with perceived or actual threats to their performance and safety. I also worked in high-stakes environments, supporting conflict resolution, negotiation, and mediation. Helping people reach their potential has always been my through-line.

I draw from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and existential exploration to help clients reconnect with their bodies, relationships, values, and direction. We will explore the two-way flow between what you offer the world and what comes back to you.

We can work in a short-term, goal-oriented, highly directed way. Alternatively, if you are drawn to existential exploration, I am comfortable slowing down to explore deeper motivations, values, and questions of meaning and purpose, especially during major life transitions.

No matter what you bring — loss, separation from love, trauma, chronic illness, grief, or end-of-life concerns — I am willing to listen, bear witness to your hardest stories, and help you shape your next chapter. We can also explore your spiritual, religious, philosophical, or mythological frameworks as part of your healing process.

This is a safe space to tell your story.

Mike