I'm Andrew Woods. I've spent fifteen years in rooms like this one.
Over ten thousand hours of direct client work, with individuals, couples, and families. Alongside the practice I've spent more than a decade building and running businesses, including a winery, vineyard, and event venues, and a professional advisory practice. When a company is part of the picture, I can hold that complexity too.
Most of the people I work with are capable by every external measure and carrying something that doesn't show except to the people closest to them. Many have seen professionals before. Some have avoided it on purpose. I'm comfortable with both, and with the skepticism that usually comes in the door with them.
Andrew Woods, MA, EdS, MDiv
Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (North Carolina)
National Certified Counselor
The real work was never the crisis. It was the person inside it.
I learned that the hard way. Early in my career I was the high-achieving, self-reliant one, driving toward every goal, trying to fix the pain in other people and, if I'm honest, in myself. I burned out completely. All the learning and helping didn't protect me from it; they brought me to it.
My wife and I walked away from everything and apprenticed on an organic farm in the mountains of western North Carolina, living in a barn apartment. That's where I met the mentor who changed how I work. He saw me and my situation in ways I was blind to, and he showed me the distinction that has defined everything since.
I don't tell you that because you need to have been through something that dramatic. Most people I work with haven't. I tell you so you know I recognize the terrain, and that what I ask of you I've asked of myself.
Gentle, direct, and not in a hurry.
You're the authority on your own life and in control of our work, and I'll help you build that ability quickly. I'll name what I see plainly and without judgment, including the parts that are hard to say out loud; you'll be able to check them against your own experience, and I'll help you find your own energy to move through it.
People sometimes find me intimidating at first. It doesn't last. The care is real, you can feel it, and the boundaries that make this safe stay where they belong. Nobody I work with feels like I'm doing a job. It's part of why this doesn't look like the expected picture of therapy, and part of why I see a limited number of people. I won't rush something complicated into looking simple. The hours that change something have all three in them: relief, movement, and curiosity. People tend to say the real thing earlier here than they expected to, and that's usually where the work accelerates.
I work somatically, relationally, and cognitively, moving between them as the situation asks. The relationship and the container come first. Technique serves them, never the other way around.
Training and credentials.
MA and EdS in Mental Health Counseling from a CACREP-accredited program. MDiv in Pastoral Care and Counseling. Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in North Carolina and National Certified Counselor. Certified in RIM Essentials (Regenerating Images in Memory) and in Working Genius.
Before private practice I worked in some of the most demanding clinical settings: addiction treatment, crisis care, group homes for at-risk youth. That's where the trauma-informed foundation was laid, in rooms where it wasn't optional.
My training draws on trauma-informed practice, depth psychology, systems thinking, somatic therapy, CBT, existential and solution-focused work, nervous system regulation, executive coaching, and RIM, along with frameworks from organizational and peak-performance work, including Working Genius, the Enneagram, and the Flow Research Collective.
The MDiv shapes how I see people. If faith is part of your life, it's part of the work. If it isn't, it isn't. I don't bring a doctrine into the room.
I'm not a forever therapist.
The work is built to end, and it does. People graduate. Some come back later to go further, or to move something new with the trust and relationship already built. Either way, the goal from the first session is that you can do this without me.
Where I am, and the other practice.
I live in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast, and see clients by secure video or phone.
Separately from this practice, I run Parson & Partners, a private advisory practice for founders, executives, leaders, and the families and organizations around them. That work is advisory. It's clinically informed and it isn't clinical treatment: no diagnosis is made, no mental health condition is treated, and no clinical documentation is created. These are distinct practices with distinct agreements. Clinical care is never initiated through Parson & Partners. If a different kind of work would serve you better, that's a conversation we'd have and decide together.