Olatunde Howard

MA, LMFT

Olatunde is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. He graduated with honors from Pfeiffer University in North Carolina, a COAMFTE accredited program, with a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Music Composition with honors from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Olatunde works with individuals, couples, and parents on a variety of issues including: compatibility/pre-engagement counseling, premarital counseling, parenting difficulties, relationship distress, infidelity recovery, anxiety, and anger management. He offers Christian and spiritually integrated therapy upon a client’s request. Olatunde uses Motivational Interviewing, CBT, and an integration of family systems approaches. At times he may draw on Structural Family Therapy, Bowenian Family Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy/Attachment Theory, and Kempler Experiential Therapy. All of these models have components of individual, couple, and parenting therapy. He will tailor his approach to the specific needs of each client. He has received training in ESFT (Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy) and has education and experience in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TFCBT).

Olatunde loves to think and connect deeply, creating life-changing bonds of mind and spirit. He likes to explore the most intimate connections possible between people–particularly for individuals and couples. He believes that the deepest issue, need, and goal people have is to connect intimately and completely with at least one person. Olatunde also believes people want to fully know themselves and to be fully known by at least one person. Therapy may be the first experience of this for some, but it shouldn’t be the last or only experience. He helps clients find their truest identity and intimacy–first in, then beyond therapy.

The most helpful specialty Olatunde has is therapeutic empathy and immediacy: the ability to listen actively and skillfully in a securely attached therapeutic relationship. But he believes listening alone does not create the life-changing bond or life skills needed beyond therapy. After creating and modeling a therapeutic bond, he becomes a guide for clients in the skills of authenticity and intimacy–in becoming fully themselves and fully connected.