As a mental health and progressive therapeutic counselling practitioner with a lengthy history of working in the urban centers of the United States, Canada, and Latin America, I employ a compassionate, strength-based, trauma-informed, and cognitive behavioural approach with a nonjudgmental, culturally competent, and socially just perspective. I continue to serve medical professionals effectively, First Nations, firefighters, paramedics, nurses, allied health care providers, First Responders, IT Technologists, engineers, nonprofit employees, and immigrants from throughout the globe.
​Throughout my professional journey, I have performed psychosocial assessments, extended crisis intervention services, and provided group support and counseling services to individuals, couples, families, and diverse community-based groups facing significant social stressors, conflicts, and challenges in their relationships and professional journeys. 

​I have also extended counseling services to a variety of socially disadvantaged urban populations, including people living with mental health and substance misuse issues, youth and elderly people, people living with neurodivergent challenges, people living with chronic illness and disabilities, people of color, LGBTQ2SIA+, young adults exiting foster care, and people involved in the criminal justice system.  

​I look forward to meeting you.

​Richard
"Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love."

- Ernesto Guevara

Top Specialties

​Complex Trauma (c-PTSD)
Depression
​Anxiety​​​​​

Works With

Adults
Youth
Couples
​Families​​​​​

Availability

​Weekdays
Evenings
​Weekends​​​​​

Learn more about Richard:

Additional areas of Expertise
  • Anger, Anger Management
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Blending Families​
  • Body Image
  • Boundaries
  • Bullying, Cyber-Bullying
  • Career Counselling
  • Co-Parenting
  • Codependency
  • Communication Issues
  • ​Compassion Fatigue, Burnout​
  • Compulsive Gambling
  • Compulsive Sexual Behaviour
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Coping Skills
  • Cross Cultural Issues
  • Depression
    • Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
    • ​Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia)​
  • Discrimination
  • Dissociative Identity Disorrder (DID)
  • Divorce, Separation
  • Eating Disorders
  • ​Educational Issues
  • Exposure to Crime, War
  • Forgiveness
  • Grief and Loss
  • Housing Issues
  • Identity, Sense of Self
  • ​Illness Anxiety
  • Intimacy, Vulnerability​
  • Isolation
  • Legal System Issues
  • Life Transitions
  • ​Meaning, Purpose
  • Men's Mental Health
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
  • Occupational Issues
  • Pain Management
  • Parenting Support
  • Personal Growth
  • Pre-Marital
  • Racial Identity
  • Relationship Issues
  • Self Criticism
  • Self Esteem, Self Worth
  • ​Separation Anxiety
  • Shame
  • Sleep Issues
  • Social Anxiety
  • ​Social Exclusion​
  • Stress Management
  • Substance Use​​
    • ​Alcohol, Opioid
  • Trauma
    • Acute Stress Disorder
    • Adjustment Disorder
    • ​Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder
    • ​​Intergenerational Trauma
    • Intimate Partner Abuse
    • Occupational Trauma
    • ​Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
    • Prolonged Grief​
    • Racial Trauma
    • Reactive Attachment Disorder
    • Relational Trauma (e.g. narcissistic abuse)
    • Religious Trauma
    • Sexual, Physical, Emotional Abuse
    • Traumatic Brain Injury​
Therapy Approaches
  • Anti-Oppressive 
  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
    • Trauma Informed CBT
  • Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
  • Compassion Focused Therapy
  • Culturally Sensitive
  • Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
  • ​Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
  • Internal Family Systems (IFS)
  • Mindfulness Based Approaches
  • Narrative Therapy
  • Psychodynamic Therapy
  • Strength Based Approach
  • Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
Communities
  • First Nations, Metis, & Inuit
  • 2SLGBTQIA+​
  • Latinx
  • BIPOC
  • Afro-Canadian
  • Asian-Canadian
  • Spanish-speaking Immigrants
  • Racialized Immigrants
  • First Responders & Military Personnel
  • Health Professionals
  • ​Trade Professionals
  • Students
  • People living with Disabilities, Chronic Illness
Languages
  • English
  • Spanish
Rates
  • $150 per 50 minute hour
  • Sliding-scale (reduced) rates are available on a case by case basis. Schedule a consultation for more information.
  • Rates may vary depending on fee schedules set by third-party direct-billing agencies (e.g. VAC)
Direct-Billing
  • All participating insurance companies with Telus Health eClaims (e.g. Canada Life, Equitable Life, Manulife etc.)
  • Indigenous Services Canada (e.g. FNHA)
  • Medavie Blue Cross (e.g. VAC, RCMP, CAF)
  • Pacific Blue Cross
  • Alberta Blue Cross
  • Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP)
  • ICBC
  • WSIB Ontario
Education
  • Master of Clinical Social Work (MSW), California State University at San Francisco (2003)
  • Master of Public Health (Behavioural Sciences) (MPH), University of California at Berkeley, School of Public Health (1991)

Richard has a lengthy history of extending treatment to clients who have experienced adverse childhood and adult traumatic experiences, and cumulative abuse, and to clients diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and frequently in conjunction with medication-assisted therapy. He has advanced training and certification in treating complex PTSD, First Responder post-traumatic stress disorder, and ADHD and ADD. 

Richard offers Direct-Billing to most major insurance companies including:

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Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP)
“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” 
​
- Gabriel García Márquez

A little about me.

As a racialized, Latinx, Mestizo immigrant to Canada, as the grandson and son of working-class and middle-class Mexican immigrants, I was born in San Francisco, California, I have a unique lived and intersectional experience supporting and empowering these specific communities.

​I have a particular understanding and sensitivity to the struggle and accumulated resiliency that vulnerable and powerless people possess while making their way through their respective life journeys in Vancouver, Canada, and the United States of America. 
In my most current work experiences, as a private practice practitioner of mental health and progressive therapeutic counseling, I employ a strength-based, trauma-trained methodology as a trauma, CBT, and DBT therapist and anti-oppressive, social justice-minded social worker, grassroots activist, serving a diversity of communities and clients. I have conducted psychosocial assessments and extended diagnostic and treatment services, and group support and counseling services to individuals and groups.  As a social welfare professional, I have worked in community-based mental health and medical clinics throughout my life in San Francisco and in Vancouver since 2012.

​I am also a former amateur boxer, and my hobbies and interests include exercise, progressive politics and film.

Very truly yours, and solidarity!