Hi. I’m Brian, an Osteopathic psychiatrist based in the Dallas - Fort Worth, Texas area. I'm probably not your typical psychiatrist. I love reading, music (all types as long as it’s good— from John Lee Hooker to Johnny Cash), going on adventures with my boxer, and anything combat sports-related— especially Muay Thai. I’ve spent my life getting knocked down and getting back up but I don’t consider myself a victim. That’s life. I’ve learned that it’s the getting up part that matters most. I also have a dry sense of humor that has gotten me into trouble my whole life.

Things I believe:

• The body and mind have an innate ability to achieve balance and oftentimes heal themselves

• Each individual is an integrated unit of body, mind, and spirit

• In the body there is an inseparable relationship between structure and function

• Body health is brain health

• Preventing disease in the first place through aiding resilience and the ability of your body, brain, and mind to achieve balance is equally as important as treating disease in my book

• There is great strength to be found in the principles of Stoicism and in believing in a cause or power greater than ourselves

• And most of all I believe that we have it in ourselves to change and achieve our own greatness through discipline, structure and patience.

My Path:

I could try to impress you and tell you that I was a prodigy child, groomed for greatness since elementary school— but I’d be lying. If you can handle the non politically-correct version, keep on reading.

Truth is I’m an Army brat who comes from a broken home in the trailer parks of Kentucky. I survived my early years probably thanks to my big sis. We were basically feral and wandered around eating berries and honeysuckle, busting open geodes and playing on construction sites for fun. This imprinted in my DNA a deep appreciation for freedom (more on this later).

My Grandads were my heroes. One Grandad was a roadworker who lived hard and died young. The other a pastoral counselor and part time preacher who never wasted a good laugh. I always felt that the blend of the two embodied a combination of earthly grit and spiritual wisdom that’s admirable. The family split and my sister and I ended up across the Ohio River in the foothills of Southern Ohio for the rest of our childhood. It was there I earned my unofficial PhD in surviving a personality-disordered caregiver, and where I learned the key lesson that freedom is a mindset that comes from within.This forged in me a passion to help survivors of complex family dynamics and also help others through self-development and building resiliency.

After planning several times to run away from home, even attempting once, running around with the wrong crowd in my teens, and dropping out of college, I left home penniless and angry with the world at the age of 19 with a plan to make it come hell or high water. With each subsequent knockdown I became better and better at picking myself up. Fast-forward and I’m married 22+ years to a beautiful wife, have two amazing children (excluding the fur babies), and I grinded my way through a chemistry degree, med school and residency to a successful career as a physician.

My survival through all of this can be distilled down to the following:

• Believing in myself when no-one else did

• Believing in a higher power or cause greater than myself

• Holding myself accountable (if I’m not accountable to myself, how can I expect others to depend on me?)

• Sports- soccer, karate, track (and more recently Muay Thai) saved my withering spirit many times over. Exercise is medicine for the body and soul.

• And last but not least, in Appalachian terms— don’t get butt-hurt. Basically, avoid the victim mindset like the plague. It just makes you bitter and weak.

I was also heavily-influenced by the timeless wisdom found in Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, and Art of War by Sun Tzu among others. In fact, my practice is built on principles that emphasize resiliency, mindfulness, and strategic life navigation. This is because I know it works.

I’m trying not to mess up Folsom Prison Blues.