An Interview with Sean Moffitt: Greensboro Male Counselor
Sean Moffitt is a male counselor in Greensboro in private practice. Sean works with a wide variety of clients and a variety of different therapeutic issues. You can learn more about Sean on his website here.
This interview touches on his experience as a counselor, the importance of intimacy and vulnerability in life and the counseling relationship, religion and counseling, and his experience in the Back Country.
- Travis
Interview with Male Counselor Sean Moffitt
Sean Moffitt discusses intimacy and vulnerability as a therapist
Travis Jeffords: Your online profiles really center around the themes of intimacy and vulnerability with the therapist. I’d love to hear about why those speak to you and feel important for the therapeutic process.
Sean Moffitt: I think that vulnerability is required and natural in life. It's required to be vulnerable to ask for and accept help when we need it, which is technically always. Not because anything's wrong with life or you, but because it is just a condition of being alive. The problem comes when people have made themselves vulnerable when they needed help but got hurt by others.
Travis Jeffords: I love that. I haven't heard it put that way, that it's almost like you're saying we are naturally vulnerable, but because of the pain that we've experienced, we've learned to pull ourselves back to protect ourselves. Am I hearing that right in some way?
Sean Moffitt: Yes, and it’s not just the pain of getting hurt when we asked for help that is what's taught us to pull back and protect ourselves. Pulling back and protecting ourselves is also celebrated by our culture, to be fully independent. It's almost like the great lie, that it's taught us that full independence is even possible. It's celebrated. So it's not just learned from our physical experience. It's also learned and intuited from our culture, I think.
Travis Jeffords: Yes, sometimes we do need to get a sense of distance and there are times when that's necessary, but so often men go too far and create too much distance between themselves and others when it’s not ultimately going to lead to their healing in the long term.
Sean Moffitt on Boundaries
Sean Moffitt: Right. And they have been socialized to do that. You know, I think setting a boundary even for distance is a form of vulnerability. Often in that situation, you're asking someone to respect something that you're saying that you need. So a lot of people don't even ask for boundaries, because they feel like they don't want to expose themselves to either be let down or to be trampled upon. If you think about it, no one can love you or learn to respect you if you never give them the chance by saying something like, ‘I need you to leave me alone tonight. I need some alone time.’ Right? You're giving them that chance to say ‘I see you I hear you and I will do that for you.’...to build trust, to build a relationship, to build love.
Travis Jeffords: That's profound. Do you spend a lot of time talking around boundaries, since you have such a focus on intimacy and vulnerability?
Sean Moffitt: Oh, yeah. With everyone and especially with men. I think that my definition of boundaries is probably pretty, pretty fluid. It's not just, ‘this is how you treat me’. There's internal boundaries that you keep with yourself and the more external forward facing ones. My discussion of boundaries could also just take the form of just knowing who you are, so that you even know what to ask for and what to expect from other people in your environment.
Travis Jeffords: I saw that you draw from self compassion therapy or a compassionate mindset as a therapist, and I'd love to hear more about that.
Sean Moffitt Discusses Compassion
Sean Moffitt: In my work, I started out a young spry therapist giving people tools when they came with a problem. I was like, ‘here are the tools to fix the problem you’ve brought me.’ But the tools got turned into a way to self-flagellate. Like, ‘this is the way I'm going to fix my inherently broken self.’ Clients would think ‘finally, once I've done this tool, then I can live life or be lovable.’ But that sets you up for failure because it’s built on the premise that you are inherently faulty, and that you need to be fixed and so a tool, no matter how well meaning, over and over and over got turned into a client coming back to therapy and being like, ‘well, I didn't do it. This is the one thing I'm supposed to do. I don't know why I can't do it’ immediately restarts the cycle of feeling inherently broken. People think, ‘I can't even do a tool right and this is further evidence that I am unworthy.* I learned that I first have to stop that relationship to self.
You have to be able to realize that you are a suffering being and that you're not alone with your suffering. You have to realize you can offer yourself some understanding and kindness. It's ‘I'm sorry,’ or ‘it's gonna get better’ or something…even just putting a hand on your chest delicately, or sympathetically. If a client can cultivate a sense of self compassion then they can become their best coach or teacher or parent towards themselves. That’s an environment where real learning can take place.
It’s a radical shift when you can start to be on your own team, and understand that you're just suffering, and it's okay, in much the same way that you would be with a kid that's fallen on the playground right. Then and only then can something like a therapy tool be used to help you rather than to fix you. And that's a very different approach to the therapy, I think, or at least my therapy.
Travis Jeffords: I don't know how familiar you are with internal family systems, but so much of what you’re saying resonates. I’m picking up on the beliefs you mentioned on your website: you are good, and you're doing your best. Those two core fundamental beliefs really resonate my own model as well. I'd love to hear just how you came to believe that. Have you always felt that way? How did you come to the conviction that you're good, and you're doing your best?
Sean Moffitt: Partially through my own experience. I spent most of my life trying to fix myself, going through the self-help book grind. Partially I came to that conclusion in my study of politics with my undergrad degree in Peace and Justice and International Relations. And really, in the study of history, I just learned how different people see themselves based on the political environment. I've done a lot of studying on what I know best, which is American culture. And it's a very moralistic culture and very individualistic, right? The predominant message that people learn is that it's their fault. It's always their fault. And it's just a matter of you trying harder. It can only ever be your fault. I fell for that for a long time and then eventually, you know, through the study of therapy and working with youths, I saw that most people are desperate to do good, to be good, to be a part of a group and to make meaningful contributions, to love and be loved.
I've never met anyone who doesn't fundamentally want that. They try and they try and they try and they try much like I have, and it's not for lack of trying that they might be suffering or they might even be causing suffering.
I'm also a practicing Buddhist and part of that is believing that everyone is capable of reaching Buddhahood. There's a fundamental awareness there that is non-judgmental and interconnected. I just believe that through and through. I'm not an expert in it by any means, but I know it to be true. I feel it to be true. And so, I bring that with me when I sit down across the room with somebody. I know that we're just trying and that we're good.
Sean Moffitt on Religion and Counseling
Travis Jeffords: It's so interesting…I think religion has come up every single interview with a therapist on this site, which is really intriguing to me.
Sean Moffitt: Religion is just a part of everyone's life, whether they're practicing one or not. You either are involved in a religion or have lots of thoughts and reasons about why you are not. To me, religion is just a systamatized way of helping you not forget and to actively practice what is important to you through cultivating a kind of reverance. So, sometimes I’ll construct the argument: let's make a religion of you, whatever your name is…the religion of Travis, right? It’s just a way to relate to yourself with more reverence so that you can be more interested in your experience and more willing to practice the things you really care about. I don't do it with many, but sometimes it's an interesting way to think about religion.
Travis Jeffords: It reminds me of the classic phrase ‘we're humans having a spiritual experience,’ or it’s also said, ‘we're spiritual beings having a human experience.’ Your statement also reminds me of Alcoholic Anonymous language where a Higher Power is very central to AA, but you can make your Higher Power whatever works for you personally.
Sean Moffitt: That higher power to yourself like you're talking about…some call it the cosmic perspective, which is another influence of mind for knowing that everybody is amazing and fundamentally good. Cosmic perspective happens for all astronauts. They have a similar experience where they can zoom out so far, they can see the whole earth in one site, they suddenly realize how small they are, and at the same time, totally insignificant and significant at the exact same time.
You know, when the universe started when there was the big bang, there was just hydrogen and one proton atom, right? Then stars began fusing one hydrogen atom to another and created helium. And then that star exploded and through the explosion created different nucleuses of all kinds of atoms. And so, over millions of years, eventually the cosmic dust in our solar system settles to Earth and we have calcium in our bones, which was created in a star. We have iron in our blood, which is from a star that exploded. And I just think, when you consider the probabilities, you don't necessarily need religion to know what a miracle this all is. So, a client sitting across from me in my office and knowing we’re all star stuff really makes me believe in them.
Sean Moffitt Discusses Backpacking and How It Informs His Counseling
Travis Jeffords: There’s so much rich territory there, but let's shift topics. Tell me about your history of working with adult groups in the back country and how that has informed your counseling work.
Sean Moffitt: It was 18- to 26-year-olds. We lived 20 miles from a road all summer long, and we were resupplied by a helicopter or mule train. We got mail once a week. And we were backcountry trail workers. We repaired existing trails and built new trails. We literally peel rocks off of the mountain and put them into staircases and retaining walls and built trails along the Pacific Crest Trail or the John Muir Trail in California.
A few core members there that I was mentoring left because they would mention that they were thinking about harming themselves again. They would mention they used to struggle with suicidality and the response from the organization, a great organization, but because the liability and insurance and the way this stuff runs, they got sent out of the backcountry to get assessed by a doctor. The doctor inevitably said, “it's safer for you out here and you're not cleared yet to go back. After some therapy, maybe you can go back.” That meant that that core member usually was let go, not allowed to return and I'm sitting there thinking how could they ever find a better place than here, committed to something greater than themselves, with increasing access to the environment, trying to save the world, literally save the world, through the building of trails. They're part of a group community with everyone bought into the same goal, trying to work together, and they're outside, using their bodies, using their minds, trying to get along with people…how could anything else be better for a mental health issue? There are caveats there. It's not perfect for everyone. But when I was in there, I was like, why take them out of this and sit underneath a fluorescent light across the desk from someone they've never talked to before?
Travis Jeffords: I'm just hearing that same theme, Sean from earlier in our conversation. You’re seeing your friends in the back country and saying ‘listen, you’re not fundamentally broken. Let's look at this experience, the fullness of who they are, and how healing this place can be.’
Sean Moffitt: Yes, relationships with the earth with each other… there was a recipe there to meaningful work. Being a part of the community wasn't always pretty, there were fights or disagreements, but meaningful work was present. Community was present and contribution was present and a sense of control over their future.
Maybe not control, but a sense that they could add to, or have some influence on their future. I think those three things are always crucial to address in therapy. If I can hit on those three things with people, then they're going to be fine. It doesn’t mean the absence of pain, but they're going to be fine. They're gonna feel like life is worth it. They're gonna be able to find contentment and notice influence on on their future, meaningful contribution and community that has nothing to do with who a person is and how they're wrong and what they're doing is wrong. And that, you know, I find a lot of my clients when they come to me, and that's kind of where the conversation goes, because that's what I think is important. Again, not always, but it's often a different way of seeing things and it's hard. It's hard to believe that actually, you're probably fine. I think sure everyone's got their stuff, right. But overall, like, in general, people are fine, and it's not their fault.
Sean Moffitt Discusses Parenthood
Travis Jeffords: How has being a new parent influenced you as a therapist?
Sean Moffitt: It is such a humbling experience. I'm actually frustrated with the men in my life who have pretty much not clued me into how amazing the process of birth is. For me personally speaking it's one of the few times in my life where I genuinely needed help. I needed to rely on other people to give me security and safety and to make sure the people I loved were happy and healthy. And that kind of vulnerability was almost addictive it felt so good. I cried with appreciation and joy every time I thanked someone for taking care of us. It was really amazing. There's a lot more to it but it's very humbling. It forces to the forefront, again, that I'm not in control, and no one's ultimately in control. And so like what do I do with that? It makes me realize it makes me practice what I preach in much more serious way. It makes me feel appreciation and the need to be present with what I have. Also, I was never a particularly judgmental person. But now I'm an especially non-judgmental person because I know now through practice that this is really, really hard. We all just make do.
Hi, I’m Travis.
I’m a male counselor in Winston-Salem who specializes in working with men.
As a counselor, I’ve met a number of amazing therapists in the area. You can find my interviews with other great male therapists in the Piedmont Triad below.
Travis Jeffords - LCMHCA | MDiv. | Male Counselor
In-person counselor: Greensboro & Winston-Salem
Virtual counselor: North Carolina
Licensed Counselor
Please note: The information provided in this blog is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional counseling or therapy. The content presented here is based on my professional knowledge, personal experiences and research, but it should not be considered as a replacement for individualized mental health advice.
Every individual is unique, and the content provided may not be applicable to everyone's specific circumstances. It is important to consult with a licensed mental health professional regarding your specific concerns and to receive personalized guidance tailored to your needs.