Work With Drew
Limited availability, for select clients.
WHO I AM
I am a queer man, a reclaiming Xicano, and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
I spent years performing a smaller version of myself because the full version once attracted harm. I know what it is to live as a shell, to have no idea what you actually love or want or care about until someone else tells you. I know how addiction moves quietly through the body, reaching for something that feels alive, or for the numbness that finally quiets the slow ache underneath. I know what it is to sit inside self-doubt and self-hatred so deep that forgiveness lives somewhere out of reach. I know the dance with shame, the voice that says you are not enough, that you are a failure, that you, somehow, are the thing that is wrong. I know what it is to walk into a room that is supposed to help you heal and leave more unseen than when you entered.
550 hours in my own therapy, and continuing.
Slowly, I came home to my own body. Slowly, into my own relationships.
Slowly, into the room with my own teachers, who saw me before I could see myself.
What I learned from this is not theoretical.
I know the voice in the back of the head that says who do you think you are. I know the loneliness that lives inside the soul, the yearning to finally be seen as the truest version of yourself. I know the body that has been treated as a problem to solve when what it has been asking for, all along, is to be loved. I know the rehearsed story, the one a person tells because telling it has felt safer than the version underneath. I know the version underneath. And I know how to slowly bring it into the light, where it no longer has to live in shadow.
Every pattern I will name in you,
I have met in myself first.
ON HEALING
What is true.
We are born whole. A soul having a human experience, arriving into a world that has forgotten this. We forget our soul identity, and the forgetting becomes the only world we know.
Slowly, without our noticing, what we produce becomes who we are. An ego-driven identity, fixated on what others have and what we lack, hardens and becomes our only existence.
A collective of humans living from this identity builds a world that runs on profit and war. And the forgetting becomes the ground beneath us. Capitalism requires our exhaustion. Patriarchy requires our compliance. White supremacy requires our silence. The dominant culture sells us numbness as healing, productivity as worth, consumption as meaning. We accept this as just how things are.
The world profits, and we stay asleep.
Trauma still happens, and we have nowhere to resolve it. It turns inward as numbness and addiction, or outward as anger that hardens into contempt. Contempt becomes division. Division becomes culture, in our relationships, our politics, our feeds.
This is not a moral failure.
It is a nervous system pattern operating at scale.
We call this normal. We build a model of healing that treats the symptoms and leaves the roots untouched.
What the clinical frame calls pathology I have come to see as intelligent adaptation to conditions that were never designed for us to flourish.
A survival self, doing what it had to do, waiting to be met.
The work is not the elimination of suffering. It is the slow understanding of where our suffering actually begins. And then the long pilgrimage back to what was always whole. We awaken to another way. We remember that the soul, not the survival self, is who we are.
The wound is not in the way of your becoming; it is the curriculum your soul came here to navigate.
To heal, in a culture this committed to your forgetting, is a refusal to forget. And a return to what is true. Few practitioners hold this vision of the world and also know how it lands in your particular nervous system, your particular story, the particular shape of your becoming. This is the work we do together.
I read the architecture of your patterns and the path your soul has charted.
I hold the room steady.
The path is yours.
I walk it beside you.
WHO I WORK WITH
For the moment insight is no longer enough.
The committed seeker.
You have been on this path for years. The reading, the therapy, the practice, the inquiry. You need a guide who can hold both the spiritual and the clinical. Who will not bypass with you. Who will not pathologize you. Who is as devoted to the path as you are.
Survivors of childhood trauma.
You have lived through abuse, and you are ready to face what is underneath the survival patterns. Not to relive it. To know yourself beneath it.
Queer, trans, and BIPOC identity work.
You are doing the work of becoming yourself in a culture that was not built for you. You need someone who can read the architecture of that without you having to explain it. Someone honest enough to name what you have been carrying.
Change-makers, organizers, and visionary leaders.
Your ceiling is personal, not strategic. The patterns at work are the patterns at home. You are tired of solutions that ask you to perform harder. The next chapter requires something that cannot be performed.
Couples and partnerships.
You are past the point where communication tools are enough. The dynamic between you has roots, and both of you are willing to meet them. All genders, orientations, and relationship structures welcome.
Therapists, healers, and space-holders.
You hold others for a living, and you need someone who can hold you. Someone fluent in the depth you have already done. Someone who meets you as a peer in the work, not as a beginner.
The doorways into this work are different.
What unites those who walk through is a willingness to meet what waits on the other side.
WHAT I BRING TO THE ROOM
Lineage and training.
I came up through some of the most rigorous training environments this country builds.
TEACH FOR AMERICA
UCLA
YALE
WAYNE STATE
In my final clinical evaluation at Wayne State, the Director of Clinical Training, who had been on faculty for over thirty years, described me as one of the strongest doctoral clinicians he had ever seen in the program.
But any program built on the same assumptions as clinical psychology, on unconscious ego, on diagnosis, technique, and the boundaries of evidence-based practice, has a ceiling. Not because the training is poor. Because the paradigm itself does not account for how the soul evolves.
I left what traditional academia could not reach. The rigor, the discipline, the depth of inquiry came with me. What I have built since is the integration of that rigor with what it could not, on its own, hold.
What I bring to the room with you is not any single discipline. It is what happens when several of them are held in the same hand. Years of yogic study and contemplative practice in the Tantric Himalayan lineage with my teacher Khushi Malhotra. Somatic Experiencing training, the body's own language of healing. PhD-level clinical training in trauma, attachment, and identity. Fifteen years of leadership inside large systems, where I learned how systems, organizations, and the people inside them actually change. And the lived experience of having walked the same kind of underworld I now walk with others.
My work centers those who live at the margins. BIPOC communities, queer and trans folks, survivors, and those the system has most reliably failed. Not because we are broken.
Because we carry wisdom the dominant culture refuses to honor.
The work begins with us. The world is remade by us.
SELECTED CREDENTIALS AND TRAINING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.
HOW I NAVIGATE
How I see, how I read, how I work.
These are not techniques I apply. They are how I see. Underneath what you are telling me, I see the pattern, the way some people see music. Intuitively, structurally, all at once. The body you are inside, the relationship you keep returning to, the survival self that has been running things, the systems that shaped you. These are not separate puzzles. They are one pattern, speaking in different registers. What I am reading is the connecting line you cannot yet see for yourself.
Trauma and the Nervous System
Where survival lives in the body and where transformation happens. Somatic Experiencing, polyvagal-informed, because the body holds what the story cannot.
Attachment and Developmental Patterning
The templates your earliest relationships built, now running every relationship you enter. The threshold you are standing at now. We meet both in the room, not in theory.
Shadow and Parts Work
The exiled parts of you running the show from underground. The parts you banished did not leave. They went quiet, and they have been running you ever since.
Identity and Ego Structure
The self you constructed to survive is not the self you actually are. We meet the truer self underneath the performance.
Spirituality and Contemplative Depth
Reading the patterns that cause suffering and the deep grooves that don't yield to insight alone. Returning you to what is true beneath the conditioning. Ancient yogic teachings, applied in real time.
Systems Theory, Power, Oppression
Every person exists inside systems, and those systems live inside them. The survival adaptations shaped by racism, homophobia, misogyny, and colonialism are intelligent responses to unjust conditions, not pathologies. I read the architecture running your life at every scale.
THE OFFERINGS
Three doorways.
Depth Coaching
For the recurring pattern that insight alone has not shifted. The grief that will not resolve. The relationship dynamic you cannot think your way out of. The part of yourself you have been managing instead of meeting. We go where it lives. In the body, in the relational field, in the survival architecture you built before you had words for what was happening.
"The most significant thing Drew did for me was help me no longer feel ashamed of myself. For so long I thought I was this horrible person that deserved to be judged, punished and full of guilt. He helped me love myself again. Not only did he help me grow back into the person I deserved to be, he guided me towards trusting others again."
per 60-minute session
per session
Couples Depth Work
For partners ready to move beyond communication techniques into the deeper architecture of how they love. The patterns each of you brought into the partnership are the patterns running it now. We meet them in real time, in the field between you. This is depth coaching for partnerships, not marriage and family therapy. All genders, orientations, and relationship structures welcome.
"Drew was accessible and spoke to us like a friend, while providing helpful feedback and analysis of our relationship. He helped us define our values and better understand ourselves and each other, which led us to have much better communication and teamwork as a couple. The experience with Drew exceeded our expectations, and was by far the best [coaching] experience either of us had ever had."
per 60-minute session
per session
Organizational Consulting
For senior leaders, founders, and executives who suspect that the conventional development arc is no longer enough. Who have done the books, the off-sites, the executive coaches. Who recognize that the patterns running their team are running their relationships are running their nervous system. Fifteen years inside complex systems, integrated with clinical depth, somatic intelligence, and contemplative rigor.
"I started off focused on getting help to motivate the teams I managed. It wasn't apparent to me at the time, but I had been allowing learned dysfunction to sabotage my attempts to live my values in every area of my life. Drew helped me through a process of unpacking the origin of my values. Our work together didn't change me. It actually helped me be who I already was. Kind of like deleting malware instead of uploading new software."
Inquire for pricing
On Community Care.
Community Care is how Wayfinding is built. For BIPOC community members, queer and trans folks, immigrants, and those impacted by state violence, displacement, or collective harm. No documentation required. Trust-based.
HOW THE WORK GOES
Where the work begins.
I do not believe a questionnaire can reach what is actually happening inside someone. So I built a process that can.
I came up through formal training in clinical psychology at the PhD level. Cognitive testing, personality structure, family dynamics, trauma history. Years of training in how to listen for what is not being said. How to read the gaps between the story you are telling and the body that is telling it.
What has felt unspeakable to you, or unknowable, or shapeless, starts to take shape between us. You have not yet had someone to hold it with you.
The Wayfinding Compass™
Every engagement begins with The Wayfinding Compass™, a proprietary multidimensional assessment I developed through the integration of PhD-level clinical training, yogic philosophy, and over fifteen years of practice. It maps your current state across the seven pathways of Wayfinding.
This is not a questionnaire. It is the first movement of the work. The act of being asked "where did your body first learn it was not safe to be fully present" begins the work before we ever meet in session.
BEGIN
Come as you are.
Every engagement starts with a discovery call.
COMMON QUESTIONS
What people ask before we begin.
No. This is depth coaching. I do not diagnose mental health conditions or accept insurance. I am clinically trained and fluent in the language of mental health.
Therapy is structured to treat diagnosable conditions inside the clinical system. Depth coaching, as I practice it, is structured to meet identity itself. The architecture underneath the symptom. The survival pattern that has outlived its purpose. The place where insight has not yet become embodiment. Different work, different containers, often complementary.
Rarely a breakthrough. More often a small loosening. A breath that goes deeper than it has in years. A sentence finishing itself differently than it has before. A moment when an old reflex does not fire. The body sets the pace. My job is to read the pace, hold the room steady, and not rush what is finally arriving.
Depth coaching does not fix. It restores access. To the body, to the truer self, to the capacity to be in relationship without armor. I do not promise outcomes. I promise presence, rigor, and the room to meet what is actually there.
Most clients begin with a steady rhythm. Some clients arrive having already done years of foundational work and want a depth practitioner they can return to as life surfaces things. Both are welcome. We will find the cadence that serves the work.
Sessions cancelled with less than 24 hours notice are charged in full.
Yes. I work with clients virtually across the United States and beyond. The work travels well.
Book a discovery call. Thirty minutes. Free. Not a sales conversation. You will feel within the first few minutes whether something here meets you.
SELECTED CREDENTIALS & TRAINING
Over a decade of rigorous training.
i.Doctoral-level training in trauma, attachment, and identity.
Wayne State University, Community Psychology Clinic
In final clinical evaluation at the Wayne State Community Psychology Clinic, assessed by Dr. Mark Lumley, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training (2005–2022), as one of the strongest clinicians he had ever seen in the program
Three years, PhD in Clinical Psychology
Three years of PhD training in clinical psychology at Wayne State University. 3.9 GPA. Over 1,000 supervised clinical hours across individual, group, family, and couples work in adult and adolescent trauma therapy. Withdrew in good standing.
Yale University · Trauma Research | Clinical Training
Trauma research at Yale University under Dr. Joan Cook, on a PCORI-funded study of sexual and gender minority male survivors of sexual abuse. Motivational interviewing training under Dr. Steve Martino, Chief of Psychology at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System.
Mala Child & Family Institute
Two-year clinical practicum at the Mala Child & Family Institute under Dr. Hasti Raveau. Supervised eight clinical, counseling, and social work interns.
Modalities & Formal Training
My approach draws most directly on psychodynamic and object relations theory, parts and shadow work, attachment frameworks, somatic-contemplative integration, and the yogic understanding of identity, suffering, and remembrance. Formal intensive training during PhD studies includes Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Dr. Elissa Brown), Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD (Dr. Kathleen Chard), Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (Dr. Allan Abbass), Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and couples-specific work in Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Gottman Method (Dr. Jonathan Blair, Director of the University of Michigan Psychological Clinic's Couples Intervention Program).
Psychological Assessment
Formal training during PhD studies in clinical psychological testing, including cognitive and intellectual testing, attention and executive functioning evaluation, personality batteries, and therapeutic assessment as a depth-oriented, collaborative evaluation paradigm.
MenHealing & FORGE · Curriculum Co-Creator
Co-creator, with Jim Struve and colleagues, of clinical curricula at MenHealing and FORGE. Among the first dedicated therapeutic curricula for male-identifying, trans, and non-binary survivors of sexual victimization. Led therapeutic groups for male-identifying survivors of sexual victimization through MenHealing across multiple cohorts.
ii.Years of practice and study in lineage.
Himalayan Tantric Tradition
Lineage holder in the Himalayan Tantric tradition under my teacher Khushi Malhotra. Ongoing study, including months of study in India.
Certified Advanced Meditation Instructor
Certified Advanced Meditation Instructor under Khushi Malhotra. An eight-month, 100-hour advanced training in the transmission of yoga nidra and meditative states, anchored in the Himalayan Institute lineage of Pandit Rajmani Tigunait.
Registered Yoga Teacher
RYT-200.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing practitioner training, in progress, under Alicen Halquist, MA, LPC, SEP.
iii.A decade inside large institutions.
UCLA · B.S. Human Biology and Society
B.S. in Human Biology and Society, UCLA. Departmental Academic Honors. Chancellor's Service Award (200 of 5,700 graduating seniors).
Teach For America · Connecticut Corps
Teach For America corps member, Connecticut. 7% national acceptance rate. Sue Lehmann Teaching Fellowship Connecticut State Finalist, top 4 of 100 second-year corps members in the state. Selected in second year of teaching to lead district-wide professional development for New Haven Public Schools.
Manager of Teacher Leadership Development, TFA Connecticut · Two Years
Manager of Teacher Leadership Development, Teach For America Connecticut (two years). At 24 years old, three months into the role, designed and facilitated The Leader In You, a research-grounded leadership development program for first-year teachers integrating identity development, vulnerability research, peer coaching pedagogy, and validated psychometric measurement. Pilot cohort produced a 32% increase on national TFA culture metrics against a control-group decline of 74%. Scaled across three Connecticut cities.
Manager of Operations and Learning, TFA Connecticut · Two Years
Manager of Operations and Learning, Teach For America Connecticut (two years). Held strategy, talent, finance, and learning for the regional core staff. Managed a $5 million regional budget. Designed a statewide mental health and wellness initiative providing unlimited counseling for 200 teachers and staff. Co-designed and helped scale a three-year national mental health pilot serving 8,000 educators.
Race, Equity, and Systems Change Theory · TFA Connecticut
Sustained engagement during the TFA years with critical race theory, white supremacy culture, systemic inequity, organizational power and oppression, cultural humility, and adult learning theory.
Transformation Architecture · TFA Connecticut
Led professional development arcs for first-year and veteran teachers across multiple Connecticut cities. Designed and facilitated statewide strategic planning processes aimed at rigorous transformation at every level of the system: the classroom, the school, the district, and the regional network.
iv.Voice in the field beyond the room.
Conference Presentations
Conference presentations at the American Psychological Association annual conference, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the True Colors Conference, and the Association for Women in Psychology.
Mad in America · Freelance Journalism
Freelance journalist at Mad in America under the mentorship of Bob Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic.
Title IX Advocacy Coalition · Wayne State University.
Member of a coalition of researchers, activists, survivors, and allies updating Wayne State's Title IX policies and response. Strategy and policy development for trauma-informed, culturally competent campus response to sexual violence.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Strategic Planning · Wayne State Psychology Department.
Member of the Department's IDEA Strategic Planning Committee and Diversity Action Committee.
Board Member · CABO Scholarship Foundation for Connecticut LGBTQ+ Youth.
Recognized and supported the leadership of emerging LGBTQ+ high school seniors creating positive change in their communities.