My name is Frederick McCumber, but please call me by my middle name, Josh. I see individuals, Couples, and families and help them during stressful times of transition. We all reach our limits at times and need a little support. My goal is to provide that support to understand your problems better as well as potential solutions while improving the quality of your relationships. I specialize in male identity and male emotional development issues, post-trauma growth, and building stronger relationship bonds within the marriage or family unit. I use Cognitive Behavior Therapy, attachment theory, and The Gottman Method. I have been told that my therapeutic style is direct and offers real feedback with actionable steps. My goal is that each and every session you go away with a new awareness of the direction to go in that helps you resolve emotional and relational stress. I have been licensed as a mental health provider since 2010 and I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and a licensed mental health counselor. I graduated from the University of Florida for undergrad and graduate school. I worked about 3 years at a dual diagnosis (addiction) treatment center, about 3 years in private practice, and 9 years working for the Department of Veterans Affairs serving combat veterans and their families focusing on readjustment, recovery from trauma, and building stronger bonds as a family.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
You should expect safety and honesty and the freedom to give me direction and feedback about the therapy process. If you do not like a direction or how a process is feeling, my hope is that you let me know so that we can shift to something more helpful. You should expect me to match your motivation for change. My intention is that clients do not out-work me in session. If you are motivated, you will not get an apathetic, burned out therapist mailing it in. We will work together to make the most impact on the issue at hand. In short, you can expect me to give you the best possible value I can.
What treatment methods and tools do you utilize?
For relationship stress, I often use the attachment assessment (https://www.attachmentproject.com) and its report to begin the introduction and conversation about the implications for attachment theory in our every day relationships. I have found the Gottman Method to be very helpful when building relationship skills such as conflict resolution or rebuilding trust and intimacy. I may also use a love languages quiz (https://5lovelanguages.com) to help put partners' behavior in a helpful context. For more individual stress, I rely heavily on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to discover the automatic thoughts and beliefs that drive challenging emotions. Untangling the thoughts and replacing them with meaningful disputes has been very effective at resolving negative emotions.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
Although I enjoy working with many different types of clients, I tend to work a lot with couples and families who are in a state of stressful transition. Usually learning how to hear each other and communicate needs are very important to start change. I also work a lot with men to understand their emotions and regulate them better. Often this involves learning to communicate better with those closest to them. Whether its anger, anxiety, depression, low self esteem, or a sense perfectionism, can all cause a burden that make it difficult to excel in life.
Describe the client(s) you are best positioned to serve.
Veteran issues. Post trauma growth. Improving/rehabilitating intimacy and trust. Parenting or co-parenting challenges. Family transition stress. Male identity issues.