Justin Gardner, MA, LPC

I am a psycho-spiritually oriented grief, trauma, and couples psychotherapist with over 20 years experience.

I work with individuals and couples with a trauma-informed approach, focusing on mindfulness, self-compassion and somatic embodiment skills, attachment styles and nervous system regulation, and drawing on Interpersonal Neurobiology, Internal Family Systems, Jungian Psychology, and Relational LifeTherapy. I work with monogamous and ENM relationships and am trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy and harm reduction.

I approach clients from a psycho-spiritual and integrative lens, exploring how our interconnected relationships of mind, body, soul, spirit, community and ecosystem inform and shape our experiencing. Seeing myself as half guide and half mid-wife, I look to find a balance between offering direction and unconditional support, as we seek to meet, receive, and possibly transform any areas of dis-ease and suffering through greater presence, acceptance of, and alignment with That Which Is, As It Is, arising within and around us.

I work particularly well with leaders, teachers, healers, artists, clergy, seekers and committed spiritual practitioners of various faiths and traditions. I've especially enjoyed working with female therapists, coaches and healers and their male partners, bridging the gaps between paradigms and processing styles in a way each can relate to and thus better understand one another, crafting win-win's from a lively synergy that honors authentic differences while deepening intimacy.

With a background in high stakes crisis intervention, I relate well with first responders, veterans, emergency physicians and others who carry a heavy burden of responsibility for the safety and well being of others, and those who've stood watch at the lines between order and chaos or freedom and oppression, and peered into society's shadows while seeking to truly be of service.

I come from a mixed faith background, evangelical Christian and indigenous wisdom. I discovered the value of eastern traditions and practices as a container for the process that emerged from that split during my early 20's when I had a series of spiritual openings. A childhood in West Berlin before the fall of the Berlin wall and the Iron Curtain sensitized me to issues of difference in identity and politics, belief and belonging. Encountering a life and mobility threatening medical condition in my 20's, led me to study and train to work with the dying, the grieving, and their loved ones, which in turn prepared me for becoming a family caregiver in my 30's to each of my parents and to my wife, whom we lost to cancer when our boys were 9 months and 4 years old. Raising my boys into men as a single father taught and demanded much. As did returning to the evolving dating scene in my mid 40's.

If any or all of this sounds like we might be a good fit to work together, and you'd like to set up an initial meeting where we might meet and discuss your circumstances and what you are seeking and how I might walk alongside you on a path of service, please feel free to reach out via email or text or visit my website for additional information.