Who We Are
Meet Us
David Ball
Tyler Nicodem
Jeff Grossman
Joe McNulty
Stephen Lockridge
Blake Roberts
At the outset of counseling, the client normally communicates their desire to work on two main goals, a desire to;
1) better understand themselves and their actions and
2) to improve a meaningful relationship in their life (or possibly several).
Our overarching goal is to help people in a place of pain, when life isn’t working, learn about themselves and heal the relationships they care most about.
At Alinea Counseling, our experienced counseling professionals apply their real-life experience and professional training to help clients achieve the understanding and personal growth they are hoping for. As practitioners, we serve the Brentwood and Nashville areas. Alinea Counseling offers a full range of mental health services that are personalized, current and evidence based, ethical, and most importantly, helpful. Learn more about our staff of attentive and experienced counselors and therapists.
We are dedicated to providing supportive, caring, and compassionate counseling to men, women, couples, young adults, and adolescent boys. We offer sessions for individuals, couples, marriage, Christian, online counseling, and group therapy. We offer counseling help for depression, anxiety, communication struggles, trauma, life transitions, conflict resolution, professional development and more.
David Ball
David Ball specializes in helping professional men and women, athletes, and adolescent boys. David assists people who are facing challenges with anxiety, depression, grief, loneliness, codependency, lack of confidence, and relational or emotional challenges.
David decided to pursue a career in counseling after his own stint as a professional athlete. David brings the same passion that helped him succeed on the football field into his drive to help clients in therapy. He chose counseling because of his own work and growth in therapy, and his belief that being a therapist is fulfilling, meaningful, and centered around human connection. David is committed to encouraging connected relationships with people that can lead to healing and life change.
“It gives me great joy and satisfaction to work with people who want to change their lives. I have been on both sides of the counseling office as a client and a counselor and each experience helps me work with my clients in an authentic way. I believe people need to be validated, affirmed, and compassionately challenged over a steady period of time for positive life change to happen. Healthy intentional commitment changes people inside. My objective is to help clients reach their goals and change their lives in meaningful ways.”
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman specializes in assisting individuals who are ‘stuck but want to get unstuck,’ marriages that struggle with communication challenges or lack of intimacy, high conflict couples, addiction, personality disorders (specifically narcissism and borderline), and group therapy. Jeff also specializes in helping professional men and women or couples that have found previous counseling experiences unhelpful.
Jeff had a first career in retail (long hours, significant pressure to produce sales results) and experienced meaningful personal change in his own counseling work. Jeff believes counseling is a helpful way for people to overcome a specific problem or to create overall emotional growth and healing. He encourages clients to find the right fit for them as they search for a counselor (someone they like, someone they want to spend time with, and someone they think would be helpful in resolving their presenting issue).
“I specialize in helping professional men learn to communicate their feelings, live in relationships with narcissistic traits, and heal attachment wounds. I specialize in helping men and women get unstuck, improve self-value, and refine codependent traits. I specialize in helping couples improve communication, resolve conflict, and regain intimacy.
Together in counseling sessions, we will generate well-defined goals, define and look at resistance, look at past and present relational themes, and understand how each of these effects everyday life. With all of my clients I work on progressive emotional communication, a fancy word that means identifying feeling states and using words to communicate those feelings. My objective is to provide a safe relationship in order for my clients to grow and achieve the goals they desire in their personal relationships and with issues that are troublesome to them.”
Stephen Lockridge
Stephen Lockridge specializes in helping couples work through relationship issues and individuals work through issues of trauma, anxiety, and depression. Stephen has a particular interest in working with people seeking therapy for LGBTQ matters and with those who have experienced spiritual abuse and shame as a result.
Prior to returning to the field of psychology, Stephen had a career in law enforcement working as a police officer in St. Louis city and with the FBI as a special agent and crisis negotiator. While he is proud of his time spent in civil service, he came to terms with the fact that, at his core, he is better suited to be an agent of mercy and healing rather than an agent of justice.
Stephen’s couples’ work is influenced by the work of therapists Esther Perel and Terry Real. He also incorporates aspects of Imago, Gottman, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) into his work with couples based on their unique circumstances. Stephen’s life experience has honed his natural mediation skills which enable him to work well with couples in conflict. He enjoys drawing out the emotions and thoughts that underlie conflict and sees conflict as an opportunity for greater intimacy and connection.
Stephen is trained in EMDR and Brainspotting as well and finds these approaches are effective at healing the wounds of trauma and extracting its effects from our bodies. His law enforcement background helps him understand the realities of complex trauma and he is honored to work with clients who are ready to be free of its lingering impact.
In his practice, he welcomes and affirms people from all religious and/or spiritual backgrounds, as well as the diversity of sexual identities.
Joe McNulty
Joe McNulty is known locally as a talented provider of individual and couples therapy. He helps clients create intimate and healing relationships both within themselves and with those around them.
Prior to entering the counseling field, Joe spent 13 years in ministry. During those years of service, Joe realized that his gifts and passion were fully utilized when he was working personally with individuals around their pain and grief. Joe is skilled at using his gifts to create healing environments where people feel open to dealing with their own struggles. He is passionate about providing care for individuals or couples that are hurt, stuck, or feel lost.
Joe's extensive training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS) gives him a unique ability to help couples that find themselves stuck in a loop of disconnection and seem unable to find their way back to the center. For Joe, it is a privilege to walk with a couple that may feel discouraged and frustrated and watch them grow in intimacy and knowledge of new ways to connect, repair, heal, and dream new dreams together.
Whether you are a couple who is dealing with marital challenges, or an individual dealing with anxiety, depression, ADD/ADHD, addiction or trauma, Joe’s training, and experience can help support you through a process of healing and recovery.
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” This is Joe’s favorite quote by Mary Oliver.
Blake Roberts
Blake helps men, women, and teen boys develop healthy relationships with themselves and others. Most of his clients come to him feeling like their relationships aren't the quality they want them to be. They keep doing things they don't want to, but can't seem to stop. Depression, anxiety, overwhelm, and symptoms of trauma tend to show up uninvited. They might have a difficult time being with their emotions and worry about what others think of them. They are ready to do the work and experience meaningful change and growth.
He primarily uses aspects of Internal Family Systems, Narrative Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing to help his clients engage all parts of their stories that might be keeping them stuck.
Recently, a client said to me, "I'm starting to realize that just knowing a bunch of things doesn't actually change anything." Yes, knowledge is important, and I'll even teach you some things you didn't know before. But we're going to integrate that knowledge so that it can lead to lasting change. You're going to connect with yourself in a way that is transformative. - Blake
Tyler Nicodem
Tyler Nicodem is the graduate intern of Alinea Counseling Center. Tyler specializes in working with individuals who suffer from depression, anxiety, grief, vocational discernment, and spiritual/religious trauma. Tyler has a particular interest in working with individuals exploring how their faith journey influences their relationships, sense of self, and understanding of the world around them. Tyler uses a wholistic and client centered approach to help individuals, couples, and groups explore their issues, themselves, and their relationships. Tyler also incorporates mindfulness practices to help those suffering from anxiety to experience relief from their suffering. Tyler is most influenced by the works of Carl Rogers, Emma Justes, Parker Palmer, and Frederick Buechner.
Tyler decided to pursue a career in Mental health counseling after working in churches over the past 6 years. He is a former licensed pastor in the Christian church, and he realized after providing pastoral care to many people that helping others heal their emotional and spiritual wounds was the calling of his life. Tyler is pursuing a Master of the Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and a Master of the Arts in Clinical Pastoral Therapy from Belmont University and expects to graduate in December of 2023.
Reach Out To Alinea Counseling
Contact us to schedule an appointment or discuss your concerns with one of our understanding counselors.