Thomas J. Pier, LCSW, OSW-C, CMF, is a licensed clinical social worker & therapist with a nearly 25-year career dedicated to working with people in all realms of health, healing and life transitions. He has a mindfulness-based private therapy practice in Mid-City Los Angeles where he collaborates with individuals and families and facilitates support groups. People often need bolstering as they face life’s most difficult problems such as impacts of serious/chronic disease or mental illness; difficulties due to dogging mood states (circular worry, grief, anxiety & panic, depression); making adjustments to death and other losses and unforeseen disappointments; and exploring relational change/loss (divorce, retirement etc) or emerging identities such as coming out or foster or adoptive parenting. This process is well-suited to individual and family therapy. Some specializations include support for those facing serious illnesses such as cancers and HIV and related medical treatments, those focused on returning to or sustaining their best state of health despite serious illness or chronic disease and those adjusting to loss, grieving, coming out or reconstituting identity after a major transition. Life is lived in intersecting local, community, institutional and societal cultures and discourses. I believe identifying the multiple internal and external influences on identity that we operate under is essential when standing up to problems and recruiting and revitalizing needed supports. Individuals benefit when they share their stories specifically about problems and more broadly about who they are – their lives and knowledges and identities and wisdoms. Our work together facilitates adjustment, re-storying and deepening self-understanding while centralizing your personal knowledges and preferred values-based living. These approaches help in standing up to Depression and Anxiety’s influences, thereby reducing their weight. People can rediscover strengths they have lost sight of, gain or re-gain insights, and prioritize values. When appropriate, I also like to have fun doing it. Let’s collaborate to restore forgotten strengths and find preferred directions or changes. My respectful style ensures that people are situated as experts about their own lives and holds that, “The problem is the problem. The person is not the problem.” (Michael White, 1989, Narrative Therapy’s co-creator)
See more at www.ThomasJPierTherapy.comor call directly for a free initial conversation and consultation to consider how these engaging approaches, our co-created perspectives, authentic compassion and curiosity, and dedication to excellence fit with your desire for support, adjustment, growth, insights and renewal.
