Miles Joyce (he/him)

My Background

I hold a master’s degree in Marriage, Couple and Family Therapy from Lewis & Clark College and a bachelor’s degree in psychology and behavioral neuroscience from the University of Portland. This path was set in motion in 2012 when I first began working in the unhoused population of East Los Angeles. This laid the groundwork for years spent working with similar populations in Portland via p:ear and New Avenues for Youth, overseeing culinary, music, and transitional housing programming. I additionally spent several years working in wilderness therapy as both a guide and manager at a program that specialized in leveraging the healing potential of the land to treat complex developmental trauma via an individualized approach. Together, these experiences have established an ethic of nuance in my practice, working to integrate the sometimes conflicting confluence of interpersonal, environmental, and political demands.

Why I Became a Therapist

My passion lies in what I’ve come to call “re-villaging efforts,” meaning that I see therapy as an effective catalyst for the culture-work necessary to heal the harm associated with being a human in increasingly troubled times. I have humbly apprenticed myself to the lineage of Bill Plotkin, Francis Weller, the School of Lost Borders, and others who have prioritized finding the therapeutic intersection of initiatory practices, contemporary rites of passage, and soul-centric practice. I have been trained in EMDR by the EMDR Institute founded by Dr. Francine Shapiro and utilize this approach to assist clients in reclaiming a sense of wholeness after the fracturing of traumatic experiences. I have special interests and additional training in men’s work, grief and loss, navigating transitions in identity, parenting, boundary issues or violations, sexuality, and religious trauma. Right now, I primarily work on telehealth and have limited availability for in-person walk and talk sessions.