Matthew Sooby
“Therapy doesn't negate self-reliance — it builds it.”
You've spent a lifetime trying to suck it up or push it down, but it's not working. Maybe you yelled at your partner and regretted it later. Maybe your family doesn't understand why you stay in your room. Maybe you sit in your car outside work, anxious to go inside, and you're unsure why. Going through the motions. Not sleeping well. Drinking more than you should.
Who I work with
I work with adults, teens, and the people in their lives who have been quietly carrying it alone. People who want to become more self-reliant, not less. Who want to be the kind of person their family, their work, their friends can count on. Who have figured out that pushing through alone is costing more than it's giving.
My clinical research is on what predicts whether a man reaches out for help, and what I see in the room maps to what the research finds. But this pattern is not only a male thing. It shows up in women who were taught to keep it together, in teens still figuring out who they are, and in anyone whose values around self-reliance and control have started to ask more than they're giving back.
The values that brought you here are the ones that get you the rest of the way. The work isn't about losing them. It's about getting better at them.
What brought you here
You may be here because someone you love asked you to come in, or because something has gotten too loud to keep ignoring. Whatever brought you here, it is not a sign that something is wrong with you, or with your partner, or your child. It means something difficult is happening under specific stressors and circumstances, often without clear language for what is going on. One of the hardest parts is opening up to a stranger about what you are feeling. I know that. We move at your pace.
Navigating the climb: The mountain metaphore
This is my favorite metaphor for the work. I am not looking down at you from the mountain top. I am not the expert on what is best for your life, speaking from on high. I have my own mountain I am climbing, just like you. What I can offer is professional expertise from my vantage point, a perspective that can be hard to see when you are struggling with your own climb. I work to help you navigate the ascent of your own life. You are the only master of it.
My Approach to Therapy
Most of the people I sit with want to do something about what they're carrying. They are not looking for a place to talk in circles. They want to fix what is breaking. My work starts there. Solution-Focused Therapy helps us name what is working and what you want more of. We move toward that.
But action without understanding what is actually broken is just more pushing. Years of uncontrolled anger are not solved by a worksheet. So we slow down. We pay attention to what your body is telling us, what your nervous system is doing under the conversation, what shows up in your gut before it shows up in your words. Mindfulness and body-based skills help us hear those signals.
Then there is the hard part. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is for the work that does not feel good but matters anyway. The conversation with your partner you have been avoiding. The thing you said you would do for yourself and have not done. The harder relationship with your kid. ACT is how you do those things on purpose, with your values in the driver's seat, instead of by force.
You leave sessions with practices you can use outside the room, not just insights about why things feel hard.
Therapy for parents, families, and teens
If you are a parent reading this for your child, I bring the same care and directness to my work with teens. The shape of the work depends on what your child and your family need. Sometimes that means individual sessions with your child while I keep you in the loop. Sometimes it means working with the family together: a teen and a parent learning to communicate differently, siblings finding new ways to talk after something hard, a household trying to build new practices for the room you all share. I also see parents on their own when needed. We work on what you're seeing at home and how to invite them into therapy when the time is right.
About me & my path
I came to this work later than most. Before grad school, I spent years in service work, took a turn at peace activism, and spent a year on a national crisis line. I learned what it was like to be lost, and what it was like to be useful to people who were. I've learned to embrace my path instead of living in shame from it, and I hope to do the same for you.
Matthew holds an M.S. in Clinical-Counseling Psychology from Illinois State University. His research focuses on masculine norms in help-seeking, and he has presented this work at the Midwestern Psychological Association. He practices under the clinical supervision of Dr. Jen Schroeder, Psy.D., RYT, with ongoing supervision in Internal Family Systems.
