Nick Sharp, MA, LPCC, GEP

Moving mental health care from offices to the outdoors

I am a nature therapist and transpersonal guide specializing in experiential approaches to growth that go beyond talk therapy. My mission is to move mental health care from offices and clinics to the outdoors. I believe we can most effectively explore our inner wildness in relationship with the outer wilderness. Our society has become individualized and isolated, and it is through relationship we can heal our early attachment wounds. Our identities are created in relationship, therefore can only change in relationship. Together we can explore the landscape of our human experiences by stepping back into the natural world, as living beings.

Aliveness is found in observation to other living beings. I follow in the footsteps of my mentor Duey Freeman: “We seek to create contact with clients. Contact over time creates connection. Connection over time creates relationship. Relationship over time creates intimacy. This relationship is the core of therapy; after all, what is injured in relationship is only healed in relationship.”

Freeman defines contact as:

a present, attuned moment of time where our physical, emotional, energetic, and/or spiritual boundaries touches another.

My hope is for you to slow down enough to be open for contact. We humans have learned to move very fast in life, and the faster we move, there is a belief the more successful we become. Therapy is the journey of slowing down. I do not prescribe to traditional Western models of pathology and protocol, and instead explore what it is that prevents us from making decisions when our gut tells us. In our sessions we will navigate the symptoms and experiences as they show up in the moment, not as the stories we attach to them. We will move through unfinished business and shift the narratives that prevent us from achieving wholeness. I embark on this journey with you as a guide because I am familiar with the caverns of self, and many teachers have helped me to find my way to you today.

Credentials:

Colorado Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate (LPCC). 0022467

M.A. Clinical Psychology and Counseling with a focus in Transpersonal Wilderness Therapy from Naropa University.

B.A. Business Management, Human Resource Management. Minor: Leadership and Social Change from Virginia Polytechnic and State Institute

Professional Training: 

Gestalt Equine Institute of the Rockies: Gestalt Equine Psychotherapist

Wilderness First Responder, YTT Yoga Instructor (Kula Collective), Vedic Meditation Teacher (One Giant Mind), Suicide Prevention Advocate (QPR), American Counseling Association Member, Men’s Work Facilitator & Member of Man Uncivilized, & Eagle Scout.