Testimonials

When I first met David over a year ago, I was very skeptical about engaging in counseling again. This was due to in the past having had rather unsuccessful attempts at counseling, where many of the professionals seemed inattentive. As a result of my past counseling experiences, I was on guard for the first few sessions with David. He handled this well and was very patient and methodical, eventually getting me to open up. David is an exceptionally easy person to talk with and he is open to sharing with him anything that is going on in my life. Initially I was hesitant about working with my "parts", as this was all very new to me. Over time I have seen first hand how effective this has been for me. Before meeting David I was much less aware of the world than I am now. He really opened my eyes to the many facets of life and what is possible. David has forever altered my perception of the world in quite a marvelous way. I now see lots of options for myself, more than I ever thought possible!

I had only average experience with previous therapy and was unsure about starting IFS work with David. I cannot express how grateful I feel for going through with it. My perspective about myself and the external world has completely changed in less than a year of working with David. He creates a comfortable space which has helped me find my own truth and values. I feel incredibly rewarded after each session and can see clearly the progress we have been making. Furthermore, David has taught me how to make my own progress outside of his sessions. David is extremely flexible and open. He is willing to make sacrifices in his life in order to help with yours. Besides traditional meetings, David has helped guide me in a variety of different ways. We have done walking meditations through the woods that have taught me beneficial mindfulness practices. He has provided day-long IFS sessions that incorporated my parents. These have fundamentally helped change my relationship with both my mom and dad. David even facilitated for me a three day long personal counseling retreat. This retreat provided me with a reset on life, and it has shifted the way I want to live going forward. The care and attention David brings is exceptional and rare to find. Thank you David for helping me understand that change is possible, and for helping me achieve that change.

I am a high school freshman and although I wanted to seek counseling to help me work through both personal and family struggles, I wasn't sure it would actually be helpful to me in the end. After my first visit with David Marks, I felt differently. I was surprised that I felt comfortable instantly and that I was able to connect with David so easily. He is warm and kind, listens to what I have to say, and is able to understand what I need most. I trust David and I was able to open up to him so he could guide me to put the work in where I needed it most. He has helped both my family and I by providing us with the tools and skills to work better with each other and to better understand ourselves. David recognizes what obstacles we are coping with and he guides us to find the strategies to connect with each other and to make overall positive changes for our futures. He truly understands the difficulties teenagers and their families encounter and he is invested in helping us to grow individually and as a family unit. I feel more confident in myself and I feel more in control of my life after working with David.

My counseling with David began four years ago and not too long after that, my life was essentially flipped upside down. I experienced my parents divorcing and felt abandoned by my mom moving away from my siblings and I. Looking back now, it's hard to imagine how I would have made it through this time in my life without David’s support. Walking with David every week for our counseling sessions made a world of difference. He is friendly, compassionate, and never fails to bring Self-energy to every session. David has shown me how to unburden painful beliefs that parts of myself hold from childhood. Sometimes a part of me still says that what happened was my fault. The difference presently is that my Self hears that message, and approaches it with curiosity. I tune in, and I sit with that part until it’s all caught up and reminded of who I am now, and not who I was at that time. If I can’t see this on my own, I know David will guide me. He has helped me to understand my absent mom's exiles and have compassion for them, and at the same time to be there for myself and have compassion for me too! I still talk to my mom sometimes, though our conversations are always difficult. After talking to her I have to take a moment to remember what David would say: “We can’t control what people say to us, but we have a choice in how we respond". He has taught me to look at: "When someone hurts you, how do you treat yourself?" And then I think, what messages am I sending myself? Because of David, I feel ready to go to college this fall as a social work major and start my adult life. When the inevitable times of hardship show up, I now know I’ll be okay. This is because over the past three years I have come to realize my capacity to be calm, courageous, creative, and curious about situations when they arise or soon thereafter.

As an expectant mother, David has gently and beautifully guided me in my own inner work as I feel into this new beginning. Without any sort of agenda, he gracefully helps me tune into my parts and find answers and ways of relating to myself. I immediately felt safe upon meeting David and continue to feel like I can be vulnerable and completely myself in our counseling sessions. He has helped me navigate my own relationship with my family of origin and as a result of our work together, I am stepping into myself more fully as I begin the journey of motherhood.

Over the past four years in working with David, I have come to know parts of myself that I didn't know even existed. Before coming to David, I felt trapped inside myself and did not know why. Traumas I experienced from childhood within my family and in the world of sports, left me feeling hopeless. Everyday was a battle in which I felt unable to persist through both mundane and difficult moments. I was hesitant about embarking on a journey with counseling, as I had never done it before. Then when I met David, life and light was brought back into my life! His honest and gentle approach provided the space to mend old wounds and offered the possibility to begin anew. His ability to guide me through slowing down and processing what is going on in my life through dialoguing with my parts, has opened up a world of possibilities. Sessions with my parents and me with David facilitating, allowed us to come closer together and grow both as individuals and as a family. I am forever grateful to David for having helped me see what matters in life and how to be more Self led in facing moments of anxiety or challenge with a new sense of strength.

I am a public school teacher, husband and father of two teenagers. Upon meeting David I felt an immediate connection. He is a warm and present practitioner. During our counseling sessions he listens and understands deeply where my needs and challenges lie. He has helped me navigate my thoughts and feelings and developed clear models about the psychological dynamics at play and many strategies to help moving forward. During the intervening times between sessions he often sends me quotes, readings, or audio teachings to support the work that we've done together. To put it bluntly, I have never felt more supported and empowered to make positive changes for my life. Thank you David!

I started counseling with David during a very dark and trying time in my family's life and he was able to help me navigate the painful circumstances and challenges with an astounding depth of compassion, empathy, and guidance through the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model. David also embodies and teaches mindfulness in everyday living with a heart centered approach. One that I now use in my everyday life to navigate not only challenges, but also in holding a deeper reverence and gratitude for all of life. David’s counseling provided a safe and open space for understanding, healing, and personal growth that has been pivotal for me and my family over the last year.

I would like to share my experience of engaging in counseling with David. It is very hard for me and other Latina/o people to open up in a therapy session due to counseling being stigmatized in our culture. Many of us are brought up in families where we are told not to "gossip" or talk about personal or family problems with strangers. I myself was brought up with the idea that what happens at home, stays at home. I had tried counseling earlier in adult life and found it to be very distasteful and unsuccessful. When I first began working with David my guard definitely was up because I don't like to talk about my feelings, especially with someone I don't know. For some reason with David it has been different, as I noticed even after just the first few sessions. With David I have felt comfortable as he is someone I can relate to on many levels. What surprised me is that we are very much alike, even though we are vastly different due to my being Latina. In so many positive ways David has changed the way I see myself and has helped me to be able to know and understand my parts. Thanks to David and our counseling sessions, I feel empowered with a clearer perspective about myself and how to mindfully communicate with my family members to meet each of our needs in healthy connecting ways.

Over the past year, my children and I have been through some of the most challenging and difficult times in our lives. As a family we have been going through a divorce, moves, changes in career, personal transitions, the quietus of a wife and mother, single fatherhood, traumatic events in my children’s lives and other hardships. I am a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist. I have dealt with and continue to deal with therapists day in and out in my line of work. I have never worked or known of a counselor that is as dedicated to the children and families they treat as much as David is. This is a calling for him. He is invested in helping my children. He is able to walk that fine line of working and allying with the children and at the same time working with the parents. He is constantly trying to bridge that communication divide that is almost always responsible for breakdown in relationships. He goes above and beyond to make sure that the children get the help that they need. He is inquisitive, creative, caring, and supportive. He “gets it”. He has a deep understanding of the issues and at the same time is open to learning about other’s perspectives. I believe that he played a significant role in saving our lives, literally. I am lucky and forever grateful that our paths crossed and that he became part of our family.

Since childhood, I have seen numerous therapists and counselors. At best, these counselors helped me “band-aid” my deeper problems, and served as temporary fixes. After beginning IFS sessions with David a little over six months ago, I became more in-touch with myself and my needs, and for the first time I saw a future that I could look forward to. He has been the first and only counselor who I’ve felt truly sees me as the person I am, and not someone with a problem that needs to be fixed. In just this short time, I have seen my relationships improve, I have felt my confidence increase, I have sensed my positivity grow, and I feel myself becoming my most authentic Self. Through my work with David, I can confidently and honestly say my outlook on life has vastly changed for the better!

David has been working with my family and has been a great source of support for us. His experience and knowledge is amazing. Even more so, the amount of care and concern he has for our whole family is beyond words. David certainly has a special gift and especially has a knack for working with teenagers like mine. We look forward to continuing our journey with David, he has helped our lives become more fulfilling and happy. We are so very grateful to be able to work with him.

David is a gifted counselor who is able to create a loving space to hold and accept all the parts of you that are in pain and need to experience healing. He is very accepting, compassionate and nurturing with the parts of you who need to be understood, loved and cared for. As you experience David's compassion you learn to offer compassion to yourself and others. David knows how to nurture relationships by developing awareness of the desire for connection that dwells inside each one of us.

Nearly two years ago when first starting counseling with David, I didn’t expect the positive shifts that would arise in all aspects of my life from working with him. David was recommended to me by a friend, and due to unhelpful experiences with other kinds of therapy in the past, I was nervous about going back to therapy. From our first session together, David instantly made me feel so at ease and like I could open up about my feelings and experiences without judgment. I had previously been told that I had anxiety, or depression, and that those parts of me were not good and needed to be “fixed.” Instead of this way of thinking, David brings patience, kindness, and humor to each session, and this has helped me reframe my own view of myself. He guided me to see that no parts of us have bad intentions and that there is nothing inherently wrong with me, in contrast to the messages I received as a child and teenager. We’ve talked through my experiences as an immigrant and first generation American. The most comforting outcome of this has been my ability to better connect with my family, which I had previously believed to be totally impossible. No matter what goes on in my life or how bleak a situation seems, David has a way of leading me to the root of my feelings and helping me be with them, rather than shutting them out. He continues to be an invaluable source of both knowledge and empathy, and I encourage anyone seeking to learn more about themselves and everyone around them to experience the truly transformational counseling process that is IFS!

I am introverted, shy and have always had great difficulty being vulnerable and opening up. I had worked with five different therapists/counselors over the past 3 years and never lasted more than a couple sessions with any of them as everything felt forced. It was like I was acting rather than letting my true self show, as I never felt heard or seen. It seemed like I was just another client, unimportant, a means of making money. I thought maybe I’m just too broken, too traumatized to ever be fixed. Then I stumbled upon Family Life Healing and met David. I was hesitant at first, as I had never worked with a male counselor before and much of the trauma I suffered as a child stemmed from men. To my relief I felt an instant connection the first time I spoke to David, permeated by a feeling of safety, soothed by the non judgmental tone of his voice. He has a calm, understanding, intuitive demeanor which is clear and comes naturally to him. He is living his passion, his purpose and it shows in each session. I feel seen, really SEEN for the first time in my life. I have gained so much clarity, confidence and hope since working with him. I am so excited to see what the future has in store for me. Just months ago I was simply trying to survive day to day, hoping to make it to tomorrow. I often questioned my purpose and everything felt meaningless. I felt like I was hanging on by a thread and David has had the ability to shift my entire outlook on life. I am forever thankful for finding this gem. From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!

I had reached a point where old fears that I had stuffed away since childhood kept resurfacing, and I didn’t know where to turn. After working with several counselors at different stages of my life, I wanted to find someone who could be the right fit for me now, and came across David’s website. I didn’t know at the time what IFS counseling was all about, but the description on his website said that I could love all my parts and that my parts had good intent. Somehow this resonated for me, as I was someone who spent my entire life running away from or fighting parts of me that I deemed unacceptable. Unexpectedly at the end of my second session with David, he invited me to go on a one-day retreat he was hosting in a few weeks. I told him that I couldn’t go because I was afraid my fears would be overwhelming. His words to me were “bring the fear with you”. I cried all the way home, as nobody had ever told me my fear was welcome. We even let my parts that held doubts, know they too would be welcomed and held with kindness. That was the beginning of my IFS counseling journey with David. He is one of the most compassionate, caring, kind, and understanding people I have ever known. He has taught me that all my parts have good intentions, as they are trying to protect me, even when they are doing this in ways that are no longer helpful. I am amazed to no longer have panic attacks, and the physical symptoms of emotional distress I used to experience have subsided. David reminds me when I am struggling that I haven’t failed, and with his nurturing nature he guides me to see with clarity how I am growing. I don’t know where I would be if David didn’t come into my life two years ago. Thank you David from the bottom of my heart!

I am a Therapist in Guatemala, currently in IFS training so as to be able to help my clients with this transformational modality. I began searching for an IFS Therapist who was willing to work online with my family to help us all learn more about our parts and how these affect us and each other. Since the first session, in which my 13-year old daughter and I participated, we could perceive David's authenticity and kindness. My teenage daughter felt very comfortable with David, and we have been able to see very positive changes in her after a relatively short amount of time. I believe IFS is a life-changing therapeutic model, and David´s experience and demeanor have helped our family navigate situations in a very empathic and mindful way. David radiates peace and has the ability during counseling sessions to tune into each person's needs, while also gently guiding our whole family to having more clarity and harmony.