Mark Fleury, BS
BS Family Social Science, Pre-licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor, working towards LPCC
New Client Openings | MORNING Availability
“If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt,
They’d immediately go out.”
-William Blake
What often drives substance use and mental health challenges into cycles of despair - including trauma / PTSD, depression, anxiety, family / relationship struggles and grief and loss - are what can feel like unbearable pressures forced on us from the outside. My belief is that healing comes from the opposite of external pressure.
I take the pressure off by using a gentle, soft-hearted, person-centered, judgment-free approach; I see you in a context of unconditional positive regard. I combine this with a Solution Focused perspective of amplifying strengths, so that together we can both define a vision of your healthy self as the exception to the suffering caused by these problems, and enact that vision.
Your healthy self is always here, like a seed, or like the sun being covered by the clouds. And the more we focus there, from the inside out, instead of the outside in, the more it starts to emerge.
This is true of the substance use and mental health counseling I provide in both individual and couples therapy: together we create a safe space to discuss family struggles and transitions such as family estrangement, distancing, and / or reconciliation.
With a Bachelor's degree in Family Social Science, and as a prelicensed LADC LPCC in the Integrated Behavioral Health Masters program at the University of Minnesota, I lead with evidenced-based therapy modalities and experience from Fellowship Recovery, an intensive outpatient clinic for those struggling with substance use disorders.
Areas of specialty for adults 18+:
Substance use
Trauma, including PTSD
Depression, anxiety
Family / relationship struggles
Grief and loss
About Me:
35 years as a poet has instilled in me a means to use creativity that is guided by Carl Jung’s Principle of Equivalence: psychic energy is never lost. If you stop using substances and / or struggle with mental health symptoms, for example—spending energy on the hustle of active addiction, or managing symptoms—that energy must go somewhere else. If we don't give it a new job, it will stay in your mind and body as anxiety or other somatic / mental health problems. Together, we will find a higher value for that energy, and be visionaries for your own happier, healthier life.
The above couplet, from the poem Auguries of Innocence, captures this ~inside-out~ belief that we provide the light of meaning and purpose to our own lives. The couplet also speaks to the necessity of relationship, in William Blake’s case, between the Sun and the Moon, and in our case, between not only the therapist and you, but you and the rest of the support systems around you. The world needs the sun, but it also needs the moon for the ocean’s tides, and the rain to make the flowers of spring grow. It’s my belief that while we are the source of our own solutions, we can’t do it alone; a conviction that starts with the importance I place on my relationships with clients.
~Together~ our own imaginations can inspire tremendous energy for healing and transformation.
I am currently working toward licensure at Grander Peace Counseling under the supervision of Crystal Vilen, LICSW. I am available for online and in-person sessions for adults 18+ at the Dayton Avenue location.
Please reach out to me with any questions at mark@granderpeacecounseling.com