After years of software engineering and youth pastoring, Ryan became fascinated by the brilliant architecture of the human mind and body. What he discovered caused him to question everything he thought he knew about psychology, memories, emotion, pain, hope, and healing. As a result, Ryan can testify from personal experience that deep, shocking, transformative healing is possible—and the underlying mechanisms are starting to be understood through modern neuroscience. (And, curiously, these mechanisms seem to reveal a Creator who deeply loves his creation and wants it to be restored.)

Pain is not random and meaningless. Your sorrows and struggles are not just chemical imbalances. Everything is meaningful. And deep healing is available to those who are willing to discover these meanings.

Ryan practices Coherence Therapy, which treats symptoms (anxiety, depression, unwanted behaviors, etc.) as meaningful, reasonable responses to real pain. By exploring these meanings and bringing them into awareness, the brain then knows how to take over and transform them in ways that lead to permanent change. Consider a parable by Anthony de Mello:

There was a young lion that grew up in a flock of sheep. He had no idea he was a lion—he would bleat like a sheep, he’d eat grass like a sheep. One day a mighty lion attacked and all the sheep scattered. The young sheep-lion was frozen, cowering in front of the king of the jungle and whimpering “Have mercy on me. Don’t eat me.” But the mighty lion dragged him away saying, “Come with me.”  And he took him to a lake and he said, “Look.”  So the lion who thought he was a sheep looked—and for the first time he saw his reflection. Then he looked at the jungle lion, and he looked in the water again, and he let out a mighty roar. He was never a sheep again.

As an engineer and avid computer nerd, Ryan can sympathize with clients who are skeptical of the counseling process. Clients are encouraged to explore online resources related to Coherence Therapy and memory reconsolidation.