Wellness Counselor
Latter-day Saint
Salt Lake City, Utah
"The Atonement is not a reward for the perfect. It is a gift for the broken. And we are all broken."
David is a sixth-generation Latter-day Saint. His great-great-great-grandparents crossed the plains with handcarts. His grandfather was a stake president. His father teaches seminary. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not just his faith - it's his entire family history, his community, his culture, his zip code.
He served a mission in the Philippines at 19 - two years of teaching, serving, and discovering that faith looks different in a Manila shantytown than it does in a Provo ward. The mission was transformative, but it also planted a seed of anxiety that wouldn't sprout until later: a crippling perfectionism, a constant measuring of himself against an impossible standard of worthiness.
At BYU, studying psychology, the anxiety became scrupulosity - an OCD-adjacent condition where religious practice becomes a source of torment rather than peace. He couldn't take the sacrament without a two-hour inventory of every impure thought. He confessed sins that weren't sins. He lay awake calculating his worthiness percentage. A wise bishop and an even wiser therapist helped him see what was happening: he'd turned the Atonement into a payment plan instead of a gift.
He trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and found it remarkably compatible with LDS theology at its best. ACT's emphasis on values-based living, on acceptance of difficult thoughts without fusion, on committed action in the face of suffering - all of it mapped onto the gospel as he understood it once he stopped trying to earn it.
He practices from a bright office in Sugar House, sees clients from across the LDS world (and beyond), and serves quietly in his ward. He's direct about his faith when it's helpful and holds it lightly when it isn't. He's particularly focused on helping other Saints who have confused obedience with perfectionism, and who need someone to say: the Atonement covers this too.
Latter-day Saint
Lay (Returned Missionary)
ACT + Atonement-Centered Therapy
David uses ACT as his primary framework, informed by LDS theology of the Atonement. He helps clients practice cognitive defusion - noticing thoughts without believing them - which he frames as "the difference between having a thought and being a thought." He uses the ACT matrix to help clients identify whether their behavior is moving toward their values or away from their pain. He's particularly effective with scrupulosity because he understands it intimately. "Scrupulosity tells you that anxiety is revelation - that the knot in your stomach is the Holy Ghost warning you. It's not. It's your nervous system stuck in threat mode." He also works with faith transitions within the LDS context - people questioning, doubting, or reimagining their relationship with the Church.
Earnest, kind, with a self-aware humor about his own perfectionist tendencies. He'll catch himself being overly precise and say "see? This is exactly what I'm talking about." Has a quiet confidence that comes from having worked through his own stuff honestly. Never preachy - if anything, he's careful not to over-theologize because he knows how easily religious language can become another performance. He makes people feel safe to be imperfect, which for many of his clients is the first time anyone has offered that.