Matthew Jackson Ph.D., ASUDC

Matthew has traveled a less-conventional path to the Finding You team. Matthew has worked as a mentor, coach, sponsor, counselor, and teacher in educational contexts for most of his adult life. He spent years in academia studying psychology, English, communication, ethics, race, class, gender, and philosophy, eventually earning a Ph.D. in education. Matthew was working as a university professor when he succumbed to severe addiction and eventually lost everything that he valued in his life, and ended up in residential treatment. In an effort to understand the phenomena of addiction better, he earned an Advanced Substance Use Disorder Counseling license. Matthew has been working with youth and adults in dual-diagnosis residential and outpatient settings for the past four years. 

In line with his training and life experience, Matthew believes in the ongoing process of finding yourself in relationships that are safe, challenging, and compassionate. He has witnessed the transformational power of doing your own inner work in relationships that are open, curious, empathetic, and validating. Inasmuch as Matthew has been the beneficiary of good therapy, he believes that humility, curiosity, vulnerability, and courage are essential to the therapeutic process. Matthew has an intimate knowledge of 12-step programs and principals, and relies heavily on Dialectical Behavior Therapy to help him look beyond apparent contradictions and lean into uncomfortable, messy, and complex paradoxes. He embraces the ongoing dialectic of acceptance and change and acknowledges that while pain in life is inevitable, suffering is mostly voluntary. If we focus on finding meaning rather than happiness in life, peace and joy will emerge. In addition, Matthew draws from CBT, ACT, Motivational Interviewing, and Narrative theory to help people find and own their own stories. Matthew also believes in the importance of making room for spirituality in our lives, joking that “even religion can be a part of one’s spiritual practice.”

Matthew enjoys spending time with his second wife, his five kids, and a large extended family. He finds solace in nature and values time spent hiking, camping, and especially flyfishing. Matthew enjoys game nights and playing almost any sport, his latest interest being pickleball. He also likes cooking and baking for loved ones, growing heirloom tomatoes, watching movies with popcorn, creative writing, and practicing yoga.