ABOUT MICHAEL MADRON
Twenty four years in uniform, then this.
I am a licensed clinical social worker in Pennsylvania. I am fifty seven. I work by video only, with fifteen people a week.
The service years
I served twenty four years in the Air Force. Most of that time I was around people who were very good at keeping going. I watched what that costs. I also learned that grief and fear do not wait for a convenient moment, and that they keep showing up in the body long after the event is over.
I did not come to this work through a classroom first. I came to it through twenty four years of standing next to people who were carrying something and not saying so.
The VA years
After I retired I trained clinically and spent years at the Philadelphia VA, doing grief and trauma work with veterans and their families. I sat with people after funerals, after diagnoses, after the kind of night that changes what somebody believes about themselves.
It taught me more than any textbook did. It also showed me what a large system cannot do. Sessions get short. Waitlists get long. The person in front of you becomes a slot.
Why the practice is small
I left the VA and opened Examined Life LLC. Fifteen people a week, all by video, all across Pennsylvania. That cap is on purpose. It means I remember what you told me last week without reading a chart first, and it means I can call you back myself.
If therapy has never felt like your kind of thing
A lot of the people I see have avoided this for years. They were raised not to talk about it, or they tried once and got someone who nodded a lot and said very little.
I talk. I ask direct questions. I will tell you what I think is going on and what I think would help. You will never have to perform being sad, and you will never be asked to share more than you meant to on a first call. You can keep your camera off the first time if that makes it easier.
I am direct. If I do not think I can help you, I will say so and tell you who might.
Michael Madron
CREDENTIALS
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Pennsylvania
- License #CW024183
- EMDR trained
- Acceptance and commitment therapy
- Existential therapy
- United States Air Force, twenty four years, retired
- Philadelphia VA, grief and trauma