Duff Stoneson (He/him)

I place a great deal of value on reinforcing my clients' sense of agency. In my experience, childhood trauma, social conditioning, systemic injustice often take this from us, limiting our ability to imagine a better life for ourselves. I utilize a few methods to build and bolster this core asset, including loving-kindness meditations, mindfulness practice, and elements of the Neuro-Affective Relational Model.

If you're someone who values introspection and ongoing growth, there's a good chance that at some point you'll look at where you've landed and realize it doesn't work for you anymore. This might relate to your career, your relationship to others, or even your relationship to yourself. "Personal growth" is an incredibly broad label, but to me it represents the fact that therapy can help with a huge range of issues in which, at our core, we want to make a change but need support in the doing.

A lot of my personal work has related to gender conditioning, toxic masculinity, and the process of envisioning a better way to be a man. I draw on intersectional feminism, the mythopoetic men's movement, and contemporary psychological research to understand the issues facing men today. If you're struggling with how to be a better partner, parent, or person, I get you and I can help.

Mindfulness is in the sweet spot of what I love most about psychology: it's where neuroscience intersects with spiritual practice. In the last few decades there has been an explosion of research into why meditation practice helps us live more connected, grounded lives. I like to teach mindfulness techniques to help develop metacognition (thinking about what and how we're thinking), self-esteem, and emotion regulation.

Interestingly, IPNB is also where neuroscience and spiritual practice often meet, but it comes at it from the sciences first. Our increasing understanding of how our brains and nervous systems process experience, hold trauma, and co-regulate with others helps me bring a deep sense of intuition to my therapeutic work - ironically, the more we learn about the nuts and bolts of neuroscience, the more we're developing the science of "feeling felt" and creating safe space for deep work.

Attachment theory has always felt fundamental to me: the idea that our early experiences with caregivers set our long-term patterns and expectations for many aspects of our lives just makes sense. In session I've often found that the dynamics my clients experience in their work, their relationships, and their general sense of the world can be traced back to something they learned as a child. Knowing that can unlock a deep sense of self-knowledge that sets the foundation for lasting growth.

So much of what men are taught about being men hurts us, but does it from within the trappings of power. And yes, there are absolutely unfair benefits to being a man in our society, but sometimes they overshadow the drawbacks so much that we can get left out of the conversation. If you're committed to gender equality, you might find that it's hard to find the right place to talk in depth about your struggles. I found that, which is why I'm so committed to creating a space where we can go there.