My Background

My name is Wayne Terpstra Jr. and I am excited about the opportunity to tell you more about myself, so that you can have a better understanding of who you will be working with. In June of 1985, I was born on an Air Force Base in Arizona. After spending the first few years of my life in Arizona, my father was stationed at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in New York, which is where I have spent the last 35+ years of my life. Growing up in the Adirondacks, one of the most important values I developed was to understand the value of love and kindness, while also learning that all work and no play was a recipe for life dissatisfaction. Growing up, the three most important things in my life were school, sports, and family. Whether I was spending time on the gridiron, the mat, or the diamond, I was doing something with friends and family, while also developing valuable life knowledge and skills. Outside of school and sports, I enjoyed life’s greatest pleasures: family, friends, food, nature, music, work, and video games. To be sure, I found a nice balance between being disciplined and having fun, which I continue to do in my life today, and thus, believe are important factors for overall life satisfaction and happiness. Despite all of the life lessons that I learned as a teenager during this period of my life, I have learned that the lessons never stop if you bring a natural curiosity and attempt to learn from every experience you have in life.  During this time, one of the most important things to ever happen in my life occurred too, as I met my life partner, best friend, and wife, Amanda. While sustaining a loving relationship hasn't always been easy, I honestly believe that my relationship with Amanda is one of the single greatest things that has ever happened to me in my life. Without her love, guidance, and support, as well as her willingness to work through her own hurts, fears, and frustrations, I certainly would not be where I am today. To be sure, Amanda has given me two beautiful children (a daughter and a son), supported my academic and professional ventures, and provided a solid foundation that has allowed me to become a better version of myself everyday. Throughout life I believe that it is important to have a variety of experiences, so that one can truly gain perspectives that enhance their ability to understand the dedication and commitment that goes into any particular area of life, while also having basic knowledge of the abilities required to do those things. Whether it be opening or closing as a go-kart and mini-putt attendant, a dishwasher, a server, a cook, a plumber, a dish installation technician, a warehouse manager, a counselor, a director, or a therapist, I have worn many different hats in my vocational career. All of these experiences have led me to where I am today and I don’t think that I would change anything, since I learned many valuable lessons along the way. Perhaps the most important lesson of all, I learned before I decided to begin my collegiate experience in 2011. One thing that I rarely shy away from is taking accountability, and I can say that I have not been the kindest, nicest, or funniest person at different time periods of my life. In fact, I can say with certainty that I sided with the resistance very early on and took a rebellious stance for most of my life. I was egotistical, I treated some people poorly, and I thought that because I was athletic and intelligent I was able to do anything that I wanted, and then some. As a result, I have been arrested, I have gone to jail, and, yet, I learned, turned it around, and lived to tell the tales. For these reasons, I began to think about who I really wanted to be and what I really wanted to do in my life because the road that I was on wasn’t going well for me or the people that I love. In January of 2012, I was faced an ethical dilemma and had to decide between standing up to a business owner with an unreasonable request to terminate an excellent employee or to continue being that person, so I decided that I was going to move through those obstacles and come out the other side a wiser, kinder person who would never put profits before people again.  I signed up with Clinton Community College to begin studying to be a substance abuse counselor less than 1 week after making that decision. Initially, I began with the intention of just getting a certificate of advanced study, so that I could just get to work, however, the Chair of the Human Service department at the time, Dr. Jennifer Waite, had convinced me to include my studies in the Associate of Science track for Human Services. Not only did I go on to complete both of those curricula, I went on to become a Student Senator, the President of a Students Transitioning Peer Service, and was invited into several National Honor Societies. I concluded my studies with Clinton Community College as the Valedictorian in December of 2014, and I took a job with St. Joseph’s Addiction Treatment and Resource Centers.  As a substance and alcohol abuse counselor, I learned very early on that many of the concerns and patterns that people were engaging in had a lot to do with their mental health (c.f., dependence), so I naturally began to get curious about what I could do to help. Having had a basic understanding of psychology at the time, I decided that if I was really going to be able to help people, then I had to learn more about human psychology. By August of 2014, I was enrolled in Plattsburgh State University’s psychology program. During my first semester, I took a course on the ‘Sociology of Women’, since I needed an elective to complete an Associate’s of Arts degree from Clinton Community College. That course opened my eyes to the world and to different cultures, and I got the attention of Professor Stanley Sabin, who believed that my curiosity for the knowledge and my ability to conceptualize would make me an excellent sociologist, so I signed up to double major in the sociology program too. By May of 2017 when I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, I was working for Clinton County as a substance abuse counselor again. The information that I learned had set me up for greater success in understanding people and the cultural factors that influence us all.  By the Summer of 2017, I was beginning to consider my long-term vocational goals: would I want to stay a substance abuse counselor, maybe become a mental health therapist, or study psychiatry? I decided that becoming a mental health counselor would be the next most logical step for me, since I could always go on to study psychiatry if I wanted, however, the long-term outlook as a substance abuse counselor didn’t satisfy me because I knew I could help even more on a much deeper level if I learned more about mental health counseling. In August of 2017, I signed up for SUNY Plattsburgh’s Mental Health Counseling program and the rest is history. I worked full-time as a substance-abuse counselor throughout my graduate program, graduated in December of 2020, and have been providing dual diagnostic treatment services ever since.  Ultimately, I wrote this because I want you to know that I can understand the concerns you may have about working with a therapist, including myself. Why should you face the stigma? Why should you do “treatment”? Why should you be labeled with a “disorder”? Unfortunately, there are powers outside of my control that are concerned about those things, however, I believe that whatever you are going through there are skills and techniques that will help change your life. I believe that the combination of the knowledge and experience that I bring to the table, along with the skills and techniques that I know work for the mind-body connection, can lead you to a path of improved happiness and life satisfaction, if you are willing to do the work. Freud once said that “your strength will come from your vulnerabilities”, and I hope you let me walk with you on your journey, as you strive towards your goals and self-actualization. The obstacle is the way if you want to win forever; always forward. All the best, Wayne