More about Dr. J
Who I work with:
I work with athletes of all levels and ages, from beginners to Olympic hopefuls and pros. I help athletes, teams, and leaders in any sport or discipline. I have offices in Hermosa Beach, California, and San Antonio, Texas, and I travel all over, providing mental skills training. In addition to working face-to-face, I offer TeleHealth services, providing sport psychology training to individuals and groups anywhere in the country
I never intended to work with athletes!
My traditional counseling career started out working with juvenile justice youth who had been incarcerated for more than six months with a drug charge. Most of my kids were in gangs, their family lives were complicated, and they were very near the poverty level. Dealing with this challenging population, I learned to build rapport and deliver information quickly and efficiently with just about anyone!
Speaking of challenging populations... I became the clinical director of a residential drug and alcohol rehab. This population was well-off financially and well-educated, but they displayed many of the same behaviors as my juvenile justice folks. I researched anything I could find about human performance to build the rehab's curriculum. This evolved into earning a doctorate in sports and performance psychology.
I never intended to work with athletes. I just wanted to better understand human functioning. Yet here I am, many years later, working with athletes!
My Mission
It is my mission to train athletes to consistently perform at the upper levels of their physical ability by creating repeatable mental processes that deliver attention to the present moment and task at hand every time. Working from a positive coaching perspective and using strength-based practices, I train athletes to harness a high-performance mindset using sport psychology fundamentals, developing consistent, mentally tough, and dominant athletes.