Richard Tyler-Walker is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Supervisor, who earned an Education Specialist degree from James Madison University in community agency counseling with a focus on couples counseling. He later completed a PhD in counselor education from North Carolina State University, and has been a professional counselor for 25 years.
Richard’s youth was spent with nomadic parents who exposed him to many different cultures and faiths while living both in the US and abroad. There was never one singular voice that he heard saying this is the right way to be, think, or live – instead there were many. As a result, Richard has a clear focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion and a strong appreciation for individuals with bicultural identities and third culture kids. He seeks to use his training and experience, both as a gay man and a helping professional, to become an intentional advocate for all communities.
Richard takes a complete approach to the individual in therapy. His approach can be called an integrative approach in counseling. This basically means that he sees all of us connected and interconnected with the environment around us. Problems in ourselves are reflected in our environment, and problems in our environment are reflected within ourselves. Most importantly though, each person is an individual. The integrative aspect of Richard’s approach is that he works to meet each individual with the plan or approach that best matches their needs. He approaches his work from a sex positive and kink aware approach.
Richard works with adolescents and adults in individual, group, and relationship counseling. Some of his special interests are in working with issues related to adult children of alcoholics, recovery, identity exploration, self-esteem, personal growth, LGBTQIA+ issues, neurodiversity and adults with ADD, family and relationship conflict, grief and loss, sexual dysfunction, sexuality issues, depression, anxiety, and individuation.