Welcome to my private practice website.
2022 Update
As we enter the third year of this pandemic, I continue to offer a hybrid of telemental health (telephone and video) and office appointments with vaccinated patients. I was vaccinated in February 2021 and received my booster in November 2021. I contracted what was likely the Omicron variant in late-January 2022.
The ecologies of this pandemic, the psychological, interpersonal and social, the cultural, economic and political, have largely defined the conditions and circumstances of our lives, generated chronic stress, and greatly challenged our mental health.
We are all stressed, suffering in ways individual and collective, trying to adjust, adapt and accept, and to find our capacities for coping, resilience and mindfulness, and perhaps our sense of humor, in this theatre of the absurd production. Many of us are wrought with pandemic fatigue, disconnection, loneliness and acedia (anxious distractibility, listlessness, sloth and torpor). We are all struggling to find the words that express our experience and the effects of these pandemic years on our mind, body and spirit, our relationships, family, and friendships, (our animals), our work, its settings and its place in our lives, our communities and cities, our country and world. This is my experience as a mental health provider and as a person also living through this pandemic.
“We need new words” (Station Eleven) that can denote us truly.
According to Johanna Macy (2020), the Buddhist scholar and ecology activist, through the pandemic disruption of “business as usual” and “the great unraveling,” “COVID-19 reminds us that apocalypse – in its ancient meaning – connotes revelation and unveiling,” a potential portal into awakening and aliveness, wisdom and transformation. We are living through a time of reckoning, restlessness and reflection.
In regard to our relationship with work, “The Covid-19 pandemic changed work for nearly everyone. Despite the losses it imposed on so many lives and communities, it has given us a chance to reorder work’s place in our lives and culture” (Jonathan Malesic, The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How To Build Better Lives, 2022).
I am a psychologist who believes in the poetry of the human condition, the poetics of the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows of a lifetime. Psychotherapy is in part about finding your own poetry and poetics. From the poetry of Joy Harjo: “Everybody has a heartache.”
We have seen the medical community and health care providers strained to meet the spikes of the virus and its variants on the people in their communities, and witnessed the realities of compassion fatigue and burnout. We have also seen spikes in people seeking mental health care with parallel challenges of availability, access, and the effects on mental health providers. I am grateful for my own mindfulness meditation practice, not always consistent, but like the breath, something I can come back to again and again, to find some silence and stillness, self-compassion, kindness and equanimity.
The past year I saw unprecedented spikes in requests for my services and care and thus had periods when I was unable to accommodate new patients. My private practice is a small, one person, part-time operation, (Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays). I will always try to accommodate past patients, and if I am unable to accommodate new patients, I will try to provide support in finding a good referral, and perhaps, some suggestions for self-help/self-study resources.
The Basics:
My preferred mode of communication for inquiries is email: dr.mark.adams@gmail.com. Contact Information
I exclusively provide individual psychotherapy for adults and my fee is $175 for a 50-minute session. I am not on any insurance panels but I can provide a receipt for out-of-network provider reimbursement. I do maintain a portion of my practice for sliding scale rates. Services & Fees
I work with a broad range of presenting concerns, and would describe my approach as eclectic with a dominant accord of trauma and mindfulness-based interpersonal psychotherapy with bass notes of psychodynamic principles. Specialties
My office is located at 902 East 5th Street in the office community of 501 Studios.
I am a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Austin, Texas. I started my private practice in 2010. Previous to that I spent 8 years training and working at the Veterans Health Administration, and continue to work part-time for the Austin VA Outpatient Clinic. I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1990s, and returned to the city in 2004.
My early career was shaped by clinical work that largely focused on veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), work that provided a depth of experience and perspective in understanding trauma and treating a broad spectrum of human suffering. Another, substantive influence on my work is mindfulness and mindful self-compassion. For me, mindfulness is rooted in a blend of ancient traditions and contemporary science that address some of the limitations and challenges of Western medicine and traditional mental health care.
In 2021 I began a collaboration with Roots Behavioral Health, where we developed an 8-week Practice of Mindfulness Group. The group meets on Thursdays 11:00a – 12:30p. For more information you are welcome to contact me or Roots Behavioral Health: 512-707-1629.
In my practice, I offer a private, personal, and professional space for men and women to address presenting concerns that might include:
Challenging Life Situations
Trauma and PTSD
Mood Disorders, including Depression, Melancholia, and Despair
Anxiety (in all its varied forms including Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
Emotional Distress and Problems including Anger
Relationship Issues
Grief, Loss, and Mourning
Career and Work Related Concerns
Concerns and Challenges Related to Creative Work
Stress Management and Self-Care
Personal Growth and Development
Existential and Spirituality Concerns
Men’s Issues, Psychology of Men and Masculinity
Women’s Issues
My approach to psychotherapy is animated by a dynamic collage of perspectives including my clinical experience; the psychotherapy literature including psychoanalysis, mindfulness, behavioral and cognitive therapies, philosophy, social theory and gender studies; as well as drawing inspiration and influence from other disciplines and forms including the humanities, art, music, design, food, sports, and popular culture.
My style is more improvisational than structured, and in many ways follows the practice of Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen’s work on generous listening and generous questions, a compassionate approach to psychotherapy that creates the conditions for being seen, heard, and recognized; for honesty, dignity, and discovery; and, for the unfolding of a unique relationship for doing the therapeutic work of understanding, self-acceptance, change, and healing, often working with painful, difficult, and self-destructive aspects of self and one’s suffering.
I provide short and long-term psychotherapy. Short-term work may be to provide psychoeducation, consultation, perspective, and/or time-limited work on a focused area of concern. More often, longer term, open-ended work is indicated to address pervasive personal struggles. It is important to note that the psychotherapeutic process can take time to develop and yield sustainable change.
Therapick Videos of me talking about my approach to psychotherapy
Food & Beverage Service Industry Consulting: In 2018, a confluence of interests, conditions, and connections led to becoming part of an organic and emergent conversation about mental health in the Austin Restaurant & Craft Brewery Industry. In 2020, I wrote a substantive piece about mental health in the restaurant industry, that is also about Anthony Bourdain, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and culinary justice. “Here Comes a Regular: A Psychologist’s Perspective on the Restaurant Industry in 2020."
Thank you for considering my private practice.
