You were made
for more than
just surviving.
You've spent your whole life holding it together — for your family, your relationships, your work. But somewhere along the way, you lost yourself. You don't have to keep doing this alone.
"Healing isn't just about changing your thoughts and behaviors — it's about reaching the parts of you that have been carrying pain for a very long time."
- W. Neil Sharpe, LMFT
How I Approach Therapy
Focusing on Connection – I view your life through the lens of our basic human need for security. By understanding your earliest bonds, we can find new ways to help you feel more connected to yourself and those you love and are important to you.
Seeing the Whole Picture – I view your life and relationships as a single ecosystem where every part affects the others. Together, we will work to bring balance and health to the different systems you navigate every day.
A Space of Curiosity – My goal is to meet you exactly where you are with kindness instead of criticism. We will explore your past and present with an open mind to see what is working for you and what might be holding you back.
Becoming Who You Are – Rather than just checking off boxes or meeting rigid goals, we focus on your deeper values. I am here to walk beside you as you clarify your own identity and grow into the person you truly want to be.
A deeply integrative approach
Healing happens at multiple levels simultaneously — thought, emotion, body, and relationship. The modalities I use are chosen to reach all of them.
Relationships
Attachment-based
Focusing on the power of secure bonds as a foundation for healing and growth.
Emotionally Focused Couple's Therapy (EFT)
EFT is a structured approach developed by Sue Johnson that helps partners identify and transform negative interaction cycles by fostering secure emotional bonds and deeper vulnerability and responsiveness between them.
Family Systems
Understanding how your family's unique “ecosystem” shapes who you are today.
Gottman Method
Science-backed tools to build lasting friendship, manage conflict, and share dreams with your partner.
Trauma
EMDR
A gentle way to process difficult memories so they no longer weigh down your present.
Brainspotting
Using your field of vision to access and process deep-seated emotional points of stress.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS can help by enabling you to understand and compassionately reconcile inner conflicts, heal emotional wounds, and reduce symptoms of anxiety, trauma, depression, and self-criticism by fostering a harmonious relationship between the parts of yourself and your core Self.
Mindfulness-Based (MBCT)
Staying present in the moment to calm the mind and reduce life's daily stress.
Coaching
Life or Vocational
Practical, future-focused guidance to help you reach specific personal or professional goals.
Solution Focused Brief (SFBT)
Focusing on your existing strengths to find quick, practical paths toward the life you want.
Behavioral
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a skills-based therapy that helps you manage intense emotions and improve relationships by teaching practical tools in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
Identifying and shifting thought patterns to improve how you feel and react to life's challenges.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT is a behavioral therapy that teaches you to accept difficult thoughts and feelings rather than fighting them, while committing to values-driven actions that create a meaningful life.
About Neil
I bring years of real-world experience — both in understanding complex systems and in sitting with people in their most vulnerable moments. My path has been anything but ordinary: from two decades as an IT Business Analyst to 16 years in private practice as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
That unique combination gives me something rare — the ability to see both the patterns and the people within them. I think systemically, feel deeply, and show up with both structure and warmth.
I have been married for 40 years and am the father of two grown daughters. Marriage and family aren't just areas I study — they are the lived landscape of my own life. When you sit across from me, you're not just talking to a clinician. You're talking to someone who has navigated the beautiful, hard, and sacred work of long-term commitment and family.
My faith is central to who I am. And yet I hold that faith with open hands. I do not have all the spiritual answers, and I am myself on a continued journey of learning to love God, others, and myself more fully and honestly. If your existential or spiritual view differs from mine, you will never be pressured or judged here. Many people who walk through my door have been wounded by religion, and I am deeply aware of that. What I bring is not doctrine — it is love, compassion, and genuine curiosity about your story, wherever you are. Your doubts, your wounds, your questions, and your own spiritual path are honored in this space. I will walk with you with love, curiosity, and without an agenda.
Where depth of knowledge meets genuine compassion
Education
Master of Science — Marriage & Family Therapy
Licensed in private practice for 16 years
Bachelors of Science — Computer Information Systems
25 years as an IT Business Analyst
Focus
Trauma-Informed, Attachment Based, Neurodivergent-Affirming
Personality
Enneagram 6 · ISFJ
Loyal, grounded, deeply present with you.
Family
Married 40 years · Father of two daughters
Marriage & family lived from the inside out
Hobbies
Playing Bass Guitar, Hiking, Camping, and Listening to music.
Areas of care & focus
Couples Counseling
Most couples don't come to therapy because they stopped loving each other. They come because the pain got louder than the love. Let's find the connection beneath the conflict.
Individual Therapy
For those who sense something deeper is going on beneath the surface. We work at the level of mind, emotion, body, and spirit — not just symptoms.
Family Therapy
Families are systems, and systems have patterns. Together we identify what's happening beneath the surface and create new ways of relating and connecting.
Trauma Recovery
Trauma lives in the body, relationships, and stories you tell yourself. Through EMDR, Brainspotting, and IFS, we help your nervous system finally let go.
Anxiety & Chronic Worry
For the high-functioning person who holds it all together on the outside while carrying a constant weight inside. You don't have to keep living that way.
Divorce Adjustment
Whether you're contemplating divorce, in the middle of it, or healing from it — this is grief work and growth work all at once. You deserve to understand yourself more fully on the other side.
Let's start our walk together.
Providing supportive marriage and family therapy both in-person and via telehealth session. Conveniently located for residents of Tennessee and across the state.
wnsharpe@nsharpe.com
Office & Contact Details
Address
2640 N Mount Juliet Rd
Suite 105
Mount Juliet, TN 37122
Phone
(615) 424-1480
wnsharpe@nsharpe.com