Dan Upshaw is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (GA #MFT001551), a Licensed Professional Counselor (GA #LPC009861), and an MFT supervisor in training. Dan is also a National Certified Counselor.

Dan serves a broad range of clients at Atlanta Family Therapy and also works as a Senior Licensed Mental Health Clinician on the inpatient Psychiatry unit a Grady Hospital in downtown Atlanta helping people with severe or persistent mental illnesses or mental health crises and their families. Dan earned a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Richmont Graduate University in 2014 and a Bachelor of Arts from Augusta State University with a double major in Psychology and Political Science graduating Summa Cum Laude.

The root of Dan’s heart for counseling is to help individuals, relationships, and families grow and heal. This healing and growth can come through work done individually or with others. Each client and situation is unique, and he will take time to learn about and understand his clients and his or her needs and current circumstances and recommend the most appropriate means of therapy whether it be as an individual, couple, or family.

As well, Dan provides counseling in a wide range of needs that include: emotion and mood regulation, addiction, identity struggles, relationship distress and conflict, communication difficulty, depression, anxiety, adjustment difficulties, grief and loss, identity confusion, marital and pre-marital counseling, family issues, parenting issues, boundary setting, sexual issues, sexuality, life integration and congruence, and life-stage transition.

Dan has a strong passion for relationships and community and believes that these are vitally important to living a healthy life, psychologically, physiologically and spiritually. In integrating our lives, it is important to have a healthy family, close and strong relationships, as well as a healthy internal life. People typically desire and work toward this integration, but it is not easy to lead a balanced life, particularly with daily circumstances, obstacles, conflict, and distress. Life can become very fractured quickly. Additionally, this can lead to a feeling of incongruence and internal dissonance. Dan walks beside clients and works collaboratively with them within the counseling progress to empower them, identify strengths and limitations, and navigate the roads of life in way that helps them to find their true self, achieves their goals, and brings integration and congruence while moving toward greater meaning, wholeness, stability, and joy.

His experience has further solidified his belief that all people have inherent value and worth, that no feeling is illegitimate, and that each person has the right to be able to express these. It is his goal to provide a safe and honest environment for therapy in which people feel secure, significant, and able to really be themselves. He also finds it incredibly necessary for the therapist to be real and honest, too. Only in such an environment can a person find their voice and grow.

Dan is a Clinical Fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, has completed the Level 2 Gottman Method Couples Therapy training program, and is also a certified Prepare-Enrich counselor, a comprehensive premarital counseling program, which helps couples discover key elements to building healthy relationship skills. The theoretical approaches he employs are integrative and individualized for each client. He utilizes a framework of Interpersonal, Narrative, and Experiential therapies that sits firmly on a systemic, structural, and strength-based foundation. This also includes work within attachment, family of origin, emotionally focused, and Cognitive-Behavioral theories.

During his final year at Richmont, Dan gained broad clinical experience with multiple simultaneous internships. At The Hope Center and Fountain Gate Counseling Center, Dan provided individual and couple therapy outpatient services to diverse urban and suburban population ranging from adolescence to middle-age with therapeutic focus on relationship building, communication issues, sexual difficulty, identity struggles, depression, crisis intervention, addiction, pre-marital counseling, infidelity, emotional coping, and mood regulation. At the Atlanta Mission he provided individual and group therapy inpatient services to diverse urban, homeless, and ex-offender population with a therapeutic focus on addiction, recovery, job and societal re-entry, distress tolerance, and emotional coping. He also gained some intern experience at a local psychiatric hospital.

Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Dan has lived in Georgia for most of his life. Dan loves to play the bass guitar, to bike and run, to make coffee or sit in a coffee shop and read, and to keep up with technology. But even more so, Dan loves to invest in people and build relationships.

For more information or to set up an appointment, contact Dan at 404.585.1404 or email him at dan@atlantafamilytherapy.org