"Where your fear is, there is your task." — C.G. Jung
Specializing in the treatment of anxiety, I help men find clarity about what they want, confidence in who they are, and the courage to pursue a fuller life.
Stop pretending everything is okay.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Many smart, capable, caring men know that desperation well. They keep the peace, carry their responsibilities, and spend much of their energy making others happy. Their own needs become harder to name. Their ambitions recede. From the outside, they seem dependable and easygoing. Inside, they feel increasingly trapped.
Maybe you keep things to yourself because you “don’t want to be a burden.” Maybe you can’t find the words. Maybe you’ve tried speaking honestly before, and it didn’t help—or made things worse.
So you keep going. But keeping everything together can come at the cost of feeling alive.
What if your life could be different?
It’s time to try something new.
What if inside your curse there was a gift? What if the anxiety that imprisons you also holds energy you could learn to use?
Yellow is the color of cowardice and sunlight, sickness and golden hope. The same color can carry very different meanings. Perhaps something similar is true of the fear you’ve been trying to escape.
Joseph Campbell wrote, “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” His image of treasure hidden in the feared cave gives us something to consider: the places we avoid may hold something we need.
That doesn’t mean every fear deserves obedience—or that suffering is secretly good. It means your anxiety may be worth listening to. What does it guard? What does it keep you from risking? What part of your life has been waiting for you to enter it?
Counseling offers a place to explore those questions and begin acting on what you discover: speaking honestly, setting a limit, making a decision, or taking a step you’ve postponed.
If you feel stuck in your anxiety and trapped in your own head, let’s talk. I’ve been there.
Meet Joel Looney, MA, LPC
I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor, and I generally consider myself my own first—and worst—client. My wife could tell you how stubborn I am.
I was a shy kid, an awkward teenager, and eventually an anxious adult. I feared intimacy and commitment. Phone calls and unfamiliar people unsettled me. I kept opinions to myself because I worried about what others would think. For much of my life, I stood in my own way.
My journey has included spiritual exploration, public speaking, solo international travel, journaling, clinical training, breathing exercises, more books than I can count, and the occasional questionable decision to jump out of an airplane. It also included eight years counseling men in the Texas prison system before leaving a stable state job to build a practice of my own.
I still experience anxiety. But it no longer gets to make every decision.
That experience informs my work. I know how much a person can want change while fearing what change will require. I also know the satisfaction of finding your voice, keeping your word to yourself, and beginning to live a life you recognize as your own.
Ready to take the next step?
My approach brings modern psychotherapy into conversation with questions of meaning, purpose, and—when relevant to you—spiritual life.
We’ll look at the patterns that keep you stuck, the relationships that shape you, and the choices available to you now. There is room to understand how you arrived here, and there is work to do with what comes next.
Every life has purpose, and you are much more than your problem.
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The Woodlands, Texas · 281-516-8529