Timothy Reider (he/him)

Grief and loss can come in different forms. Sometimes we don't have all the pieces to understand a loss. Sometimes we struggle to find meaning in a death, or eternally asking if the outcome would have changed if we did something different. There are enduring bonds that are worth companioning; that the relationship has moved from presence to memory and is still very much alive and well. Sometimes, therapy is the space to share the memory of what this relationship is.

I have experience working with men or masculine-identified people with working on healthy self-expression. Our culture, to this day, continues to send the message that masculinity is defined by the avoidance or armoring against perceiving as feminine. Like any aspect of identity, expressing who you are by saying who you are not, is a dilemma. There’s many right answers to the question, and I can help you feel supported in processing it.

I'm familiar with the dynamics around outness, family acceptance, workplace discrimination, religious trauma, minority stress, and education burden. Specifically for trans clients, I am familiar with advocacy in letters around gender affirming surgical interventions and hormones (if needed). I also support the communities that are stepping into prominence, including nonbinary identities, agender, asexual, poly, intersex, demi, and those that just aren’t into labels.

My background and bias as a therapist is that I prefer the psychodynamic approach to psychotherapy. Basically, I put affect and emotions first before really stepping into the logic of why we behave the way we do. In the same way you could go to an art museum and understand someone's self-portrait looks sad without having to go to art school to learn why. (And yet isn't there always that one person in the museum who says something like "Ah! Oh~ It's not sad, it's not blue enough!!")

I'm trained in an expressive art technique called the Mandala Assessment Research Instrument (MARI). Check out their website (https://www.maricreativeresources.com/) for more information. Without giving too much away, sometimes our art is trying to express the same thing we want to with words, and we're having a hard time making them meet in the middle.

I focus on hearing emotions first when I work with people. With that art gallery perspective, it's kind of like how if we both were looking at the same work of art- you can't prove nor disprove a painting feels sad to you. And kind of like being in a museum looking at art, you have to just accept that sitting with an experience of conflicting emotions is the point, instead of trying to prove the picture isn't sad because it didn't use any Blue.

The relationship between our thoughts and our actions is important to understand. Prior to training as a therapist, I had a background as a neuroscience student. I know a lot about how the brain functions as an organ, and that when we are on personal autopilot, we sometimes take the path of least resistance versus what is actually healthy for us. I can teach you the techniques to help get your thoughts and actions under control.