Joshua Haddock
With more than 20 years of clinical experience, I work with adults and couples who want to better understand themselves, their relationships, and the patterns that may be keeping them stuck. I have particular experience working with ADHD, men’s issues, relationships, anxiety, eating disorders, and emotional and behavioral concerns. My approach to therapy is warm, direct, curious, and collaborative. I listen carefully, but I also believe therapy should be an active conversation. I’ll ask questions, offer observations, help make connections, and sometimes challenge you to look at something differently.
My therapeutic approach is integrative, drawing from one or a combination of these methodologies based on what will be most beneficial for each individual.
My training spans cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, behavioral, neuropsychological, humanistic, and Adlerian perspectives. Rather than asking every client to fit one particular model, I draw from these approaches based on the person sitting across from me. Sometimes that means practical strategies for something happening right now; other times it means understanding why the same pattern has followed you for years. Ideally, therapy gives us room for both.
First session
You don’t need to arrive at your first session knowing exactly what’s wrong or what you want from therapy. Part of my job is helping us figure that out together. I’ll want to understand what brought you in, what’s happening now, what you’ve already tried, and what you would like to be different. I’ll also ask about some of the broader context of your life because the problem that brings someone to therapy rarely exists in isolation. You can expect me to listen carefully, but I won’t simply sit back and take notes. I’ll ask questions, offer observations, and begin sharing some of my thinking with you. Often, we’re already identifying patterns and making connections during that first conversation. By the end of the session, my goal is for us to have a clearer initial understanding of what may be happening and where we might begin. Just as importantly, you should have a good sense of who I am, how I work, and whether I’m someone you feel comfortable continuing with.
Strengths
One of my greatest strengths is helping people make connections; between thoughts and emotions, past and present, behavior and motivation, or two parts of an experience that may initially seem unrelated. I bring warmth and empathy to that process, but I’m also an active therapist. I don’t believe my role is simply to listen quietly and occasionally ask, “How does that make you feel?” I ask questions, offer observations and feedback, explain psychological concepts when they’re useful, and respectfully challenge assumptions when I think another perspective may help. More than 20 years of clinical work has also taught me to be comfortable with complexity. People rarely fit neatly into one diagnosis, theory, or treatment model. I try to understand the whole person rather than reducing someone to a collection of symptoms. Ultimately, I want clients to feel both understood and intellectually engaged in therapy, and to leave with greater clarity about themselves than they had when they came in.
Ideal clients
I tend to work especially well with thoughtful, curious people who want to understand not only what they’re experiencing, but why. Sometimes they already have considerable insight into themselves yet still find themselves repeating patterns they haven’t been able to change. Many of my clients are men navigating relationships, ADHD, anxiety, emotional regulation, identity, fatherhood, work, or major life transitions. I also enjoy working with adults with ADHD who have spent years wondering why things that seem easy for other people require so much effort, and with couples who care deeply about one another but have become caught in recurring patterns of conflict, distance, resentment, or misunderstanding. You don’t need to arrive highly motivated, psychologically minded, or even convinced that therapy is going to work. Skepticism is welcome. What matters more is a willingness to be curious about yourself and, over time, to experiment with doing some things differently. My clients tend to appreciate therapy that feels like a genuine conversation, supportive and accepting, but also direct, thoughtful, practical, and willing to go deeper when necessary.
Treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
I use CBT to help clients become more aware of the relationship between what they think, what they feel, and what they do. But I don’t approach every uncomfortable thought as something that simply needs to be labeled a “distortion” and replaced with a positive one. Instead, I’m interested in how a particular way of thinking developed, what function it may serve, whether it accurately reflects the situation now, and what happens when we test alternative ways of interpreting or responding to it. Depending on the concern, our work may include cognitive restructuring, behavioral experiments, exposure, activity scheduling, problem-solving, or practical strategies between sessions. I often integrate CBT with psychodynamic and other approaches so we can address both the pattern occurring today and the experiences that may help explain why it developed.
Couples Counseling
In couples therapy, I’m generally less interested in deciding who is right and more interested in understanding the pattern happening between two people. Conflict often develops into a predictable cycle: one person reacts, the other responds to that reaction, which confirms something for the first person, and eventually both partners feel misunderstood. We slow that process down and examine communication, expectations, emotional needs, intimacy, resentment, trust, family history, and the assumptions each partner brings into the relationship. My role is active and balanced. I want both partners to feel heard, but feeling heard doesn’t mean I’ll agree with everything either person says. When necessary, I’ll challenge each partner to consider how his or her own behavior contributes to the dynamic. The goal isn’t a relationship without disagreement. It’s helping couples understand one another more accurately, communicate more effectively, repair conflict more successfully, and begin functioning as partners again rather than adversaries.
Neurofeedback
When appropriate, I incorporate qEEG-informed neurofeedback as an adjunct to psychotherapy rather than as a replacement for therapy or medical treatment. Neurofeedback provides real-time information about aspects of brain activity and allows clients to practice patterns of self-regulation through repeated feedback. Depending on the individual and treatment goals, it may be considered as one component of work involving attention, arousal, or emotional regulation. I approach neurofeedback in the same way I approach other interventions: as a potential tool rather than a universal solution. We consider the client’s symptoms, goals, history, response to treatment, and the limitations of the available evidence when determining whether it has a useful role in the overall treatment plan. When I use qEEG information, I also interpret it within the broader clinical picture rather than treating a brain map as a stand-alone psychological diagnosis.
Psychodynamic
Sometimes what’s happening today makes much more sense once we understand what came before it. I use psychodynamic ideas to help clients recognize recurring relationship patterns, emotional reactions, defenses, internal conflicts, and assumptions about themselves or other people that may operate partly outside conscious awareness. We may explore early experiences and important relationships, but the purpose isn’t simply to analyze the past. Instead, we’re asking how those experiences may still be influencing the present. Why does this particular criticism feel so powerful? Why do you repeatedly find yourself in similar relationships? Why do you withdraw when you most want connection? Why does success—or failure—mean what it does to you? Insight alone doesn’t necessarily create change, but it can create choices where reactions previously felt automatic. I often combine this deeper exploratory work with more practical approaches so that understanding where a pattern came from helps us determine what to do differently now.
Location
Virtual sessions