Meet MJ
Hi there! I’m so glad you are here. And honestly, it’s a big surprise to me that I’m here.
Long story short - I followed a trail of breadcrumbs to this chair.
I’m a therapist, professional school counselor, and ordained United Methodist pastor. Over the years, my work has moved from churches to schools to community mental health.
I found myself landing in the places where grief, relationships, faith, doubt, mental health, and the general messiness of being human overlap.
YES, I’M A PASTOR. There, we got that out of the way. Nobody panic, yet.
Spirituality and religion tend to show up somewhere on a therapist’s intake form because, for many people, they are part of how we make meaning. They can also be sources of pain, doubt, conflict, trauma, anger, or belonging and hope. Or absolutely none of the above.
If you’re Christian and your faith matters deeply to you, I’ll meet you there.
If you’re Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, questioning, deconstructing, angry at God, not particularly interested in God, or still deciding what you think about the whole business, I’ll meet you there.
If you tell me, I do not want spirituality to be part of my therapy, I’ll meet you there too.
I’m not interested in using the therapy hour you are paying for to attempt to convert or convince you to believe or not believe anything.
But if what brings you here is an existential crisis, religious trauma, a loss of faith, questions about meaning, mortality, purpose, or the unnerving realization that you no longer know what you believe
Well, we can get curious about that too.
AND NOW, BRACKISH.
I’ve worked in churches, schools, community mental health, and the spaces between them. Each has taught me something about being strangely human, and about how difficult it can be to find good mental-health care when you finally decide you want it.
I can’t solve the mental-health desert on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
I can make one more room.
CREDENTIALS + EXPERIENCE
I wasn't particularly interested in showing you my I-Love-Me Wall, but you may reasonably be wondering what qualifies me to sit in the other chair.
Fair enough.
P-Licensed Professional Counselor
Professional School Counselor
Board Certified Telemental Health Provider
Ordained Elder & Deacon, United Methodist Church
MDE Psychology Endorsement
Certified SYMBIS facilitator (Saving Your Marriage Before it Starts)
M.S. Counseling
B.S. Psychology, Minor in Religion
Over 60 graduate theological hours.
3,000+ supervised hours in clinical counseling + 100 hours clinical case supervision.
There. Now that we’ve established the qualifications I have earned to have the chair, I hope you’ll feel a little more comfortable sitting in yours.