Colby Wilkins

I'm a mental health counselor (RMHCI, Florida) for people looking for a compassionate witness and a curious companion as they heal. Many of the people I work with have found ways to keep it all together, until anxiety, or needs and hopes they've never let themselves say out loud, start to break through. Often there's anger that got pushed away somewhere along the way, and it shows up sideways: in addiction, or in emotions that feel too big to manage. I love helping people get curious about those parts of themselves, both the ones that reach for relief and the ones that learned to stay quiet, and I especially enjoy sitting with men who are wrestling with addiction. I also enjoy working with couples in a season of disconnection who want to discover each other again, learning to name their own wishes and desires while staying connected as a unit. I find deep meaning in working with people carrying developmental trauma, where early experiences layered in painful beliefs that their protective parts still work hard to defend. And I walk with people untangling religious trauma and spiritual abuse. Whatever brings you in, you're the expert on your own experience. My job is to stay close, stay curious, and help you keep going a little further down the road. I’ve completed EMDRIA-approved training in EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) and have loved seeing clients move from confusion to greater clarity, from dysregulation to a permeating sense of groundedness. We can do focused, weekly or intensive EMDR work together, we can weave the benefits of EMDR into the course of your sessions, or we can take a more traditional, talk-therapy approach. We can work together to find the best route for you. In addition to my role as a mental health counselor, I serve as a reserve chaplain in the Air Force, where I counsel military members and their families, providing a confidential space to process through war and workplace trauma, addiction, moral injury, and spiritual identity. As a clergyperson, I hold the complexity here, knowing that faith can be a source of goodness, meaning, connection, and joy and yet it can also be used to harm, control, and silence our very good personhood. I know that pain personally, and much of what I understand about it I've learned by reckoning with my own story. Across all of my work – whether military or civilian – I honor each person’s individual choice of faith or no faith, and take seriously their own goals for how they want to show up in the world. Respect for the autonomy of others is integral to my own faith. Currently, all of my mental health counseling and coaching work is offered virtually from the front range of the Colorado Rockies, where I live and adventure with my family. To learn more, visit www.wilkinscounseling.com.