From 2011 through 2019, I was the curriculum developer and lead instructor for an expressive writing program that my colleagues in the Veterans Writing Project and I presented weekly at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), DoD’s premier research and treatment facility for PTSD and TBI. The program, developed and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, was initially called Operation Homecoming and later evolved into Creative Forces.

In 2020 I developed and debuted a 90-minute performance/presentation about how trauma survivors can use the arts as a part of their recovery. It could be useful for PTSD survivors, their family members, and healthcare providers. Built around readings from my memoir, Seriously Not All Right: Five Wars in Ten Years, and songs from my EP Trying to Catch Amnesia, the performance includes a discussion of the strategies and techniques I used for my own healing and techniques developed in consultation with researchers and health care providers like Dr. James Pennebaker, Dr. Jonathan Shay, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, and Dr. Ron Koshes.

In 2012, I contributed a peer-reviewed chapter on using writing as therapy in clinical contexts to Healing War Trauma: A Handbook of Creative Approaches.

In 2010, I published a peer-reviewed article, Back From The Brink: War, Suicide, and PTSD, to the health policy journal Health Affairs.

I hold a certificate in Integrative Health and Medicine from the University of Minnesota and I'm a trained (but not board certified) recreational therapist. I've completed course work in Music Therapy Techniques at Berklee College of Music, and in Healing with the Arts at the University of Florida.