Nathan Hawkins
Licensed Professional Counselor
Areas of Experience: Anxiety, Depression, Relationship Concerns, Communication, Christian Counseling, Self-Esteem, Life Transitions, Trauma Recovery.
First Responder Counseling.
You've carried everyone else's worst day. Who's carrying yours?
Confidential counseling for police, fire, EMS, dispatch, and hospital staff, and the families who love them.
Out there, you’re the steady one. You walk into the worst moment of someone’s life, do your job, and move on to the next call. Compartmentalizing is part of the skill set, and it works. Until one day it doesn’t quite work at home, or at 3 a.m., or when a call reminds you of one you thought you’d put away.
Counseling for first responders isn’t about taking that strength away. It’s about understanding what the job has stored up in you, and building ways of coping that last longer than the next shift.
Who We Work With.
Law enforcement officers
Officers carry years of exposure that most people never see, often while feeling like they can’t let anyone in. We offer a confidential place to set some of that down.
Firefighters
Firehouse culture is built on getting it done, which can make it hard to notice when stress has been piling up. We help you see the signs early and do something about them.
EMTs and paramedics
Call after call of high-stakes decisions can wear down even the most caring medic. Exhaustion and compassion fatigue are real, and they respond to care.
911 dispatchers
You hear the worst of it without seeing it, and you rarely find out how the story ends. That kind of stress is easy to overlook, including by the people who carry it.
Emergency room and hospital staff
Loss, short staffing, and the long tail of the pandemic have pushed many hospital workers past empty. You spend your days caring for others. This is a place for someone to care for you.
Families of first responders
The job comes home. A spouse or child may feel the hypervigilance, the short fuse, or the distance before the first responder does. Families are welcome here, together or on their own. Learn more about counseling for couples and counseling for families.
What Tends to Surface.
A threat radar that won’t switch off
Scanning every room, sitting facing the door, sleeping light and waking at every sound. What keeps you safe on duty can be exhausting everywhere else.
The aftermath of a critical incident
A particular call keeps coming back as images, smells, or sounds. Or your reaction to something small feels way bigger than it should. That usually means something is stuck, and stuck things can move.
Compassion fatigue and burnout
The caring part of you gets harder to reach, and cynicism becomes the default. That isn’t a character flaw. It’s a sign you’ve been giving more than you’ve been getting back.
Anger and a short fuse at home
The stress from work has to go somewhere, and too often it lands on the people you love most. We help you understand where it comes from and get your footing back.
Life after the job
Retirement, injury, or a career change can leave you wondering who you are without the uniform. The grief that comes with leaving this work is real, and it deserves attention.
If any of this sounds familiar, it's worth a call.
Call us at (503) 837-3449 or request an appointment online. Our intake team will help you find a counselor who fits.
How We Work.
There's no one right way to do this work, and we won't hand you a program off the shelf. Your first sessions are about understanding what you're carrying and what you want to be different. Then we pick the tools that fit.
When a scene keeps replaying: EMDR. Some calls don't stay in the past. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) helps your brain file a memory away properly, so it stops showing up uninvited. You don't have to retell every detail over and over for it to work. Learn more about our EMDR intensives.
When the job trains your thinking: CBT. Years on the job can teach your mind to expect the worst, assume threat, or brush off what you feel. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps you notice those automatic thoughts, test whether they still fit life off duty, and build habits of thinking that serve you better at home.
The professional self and everything underneath: IFS. On the job, you need a version of yourself that stays calm, focused, and in control. Internal Family Systems (IFS) helps you get to know that protective part, thank it for its work, and gently reach what it's been guarding, so you can set the armor down when you get home.
Meet Our First Responder Counselors
Tap a photo or name to read that counselor's bio.
Danielle Biegler
Counselor 3
Areas of Experience: Teen, Family, and Partner relationship issues, Anxiety, Depression, destructive communication, and behavior issues.
Ben Copeland
Counselor 2
Areas of Experience: Couple's, Family and adolescent and individual Counselor.
Amy Ramsey
Counselor 3
Areas of Experience: Serving Adolescent and adults struggling with anxiety and depression.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Will my employer or department find out I am seeing a therapist?
No. What you share in therapy is protected under federal HIPAA law and Oregon state confidentiality statutes. There are narrow legal exceptions, an active, credible plan to harm yourself or someone else, but a therapist cannot share information with your employer, your department, or anyone else without your written consent. The content of what you discuss in session is not reportable.
I do not think I have PTSD. Do I still qualify for therapy?
Yes. Most first responders who come in are not sure what to call what is happening, they just know something has shifted. You do not need a formal diagnosis to start. You do not need to believe you are bad enough. Burnout, compassion fatigue, chronic anger, relationship strain, and hypervigilance all qualify, and they all respond to treatment.
How is this different from talking to a department chaplain or EAP counselor?
Chaplains and peer support play a real role, and we do not minimize that. But therapy is different. It is structured clinical work aimed at identifying patterns, processing stuck material, and building durable change over time. EAP sessions are often short-term, limited in scope, and not specific to this population. Ongoing therapy at Life Encounter can be coordinated with or separate from any EAP relationship you already have.
Does insurance cover first responder counseling?
Life Encounter accepts most major insurance plans. Oregon's Mental Health Parity laws require insurers to cover mental health treatment at rates comparable to physical health care. If you are unsure about your specific coverage, call your insurer and ask about outpatient mental health benefits. We can also help clarify what to expect before your first appointment.
How long does therapy usually take?
It depends on what you are working on and how your system responds. Focused concerns, processing a specific critical incident, learning to regulate anger at home, may see meaningful progress in 8 to 16 sessions. Longer-standing patterns take longer. After the first few sessions, you will have a clearer picture of what the work looks like and roughly how long it might take.
When to Reach Out.
People in this work tend to come in one of two ways: before something broke, when they could feel the accumulation and wanted to address it on their own terms, or after something broke, when the accumulation made the decision for them. Both are workable. The first is easier.
Call us at (503) 837-3449 or request an appointment online. Our office is at 7320 SW Hunziker Rd, Suite 204, Tigard, OR 97223.
How Our Counseling Works.
Our family and marriage counselors/therapists practice side by side supporting one another as needed to offer an extensive range of counseling awareness and fields of knowledge.
We want to be an appropriate resource to you on your journey. We want you to feel heard, respected, cared for and understood. So often times it seems that is all we need. We want you to know that we have the experience to deal with the very hardest obstacles in life. We are honored to serve!
1 – Contact Us
Send us an email message or give us a call to connect. Get started by getting in touch with us and setting up an intro.
2 – Book Appointment
If you are new to Life Encounter, be sure to book a New Client Session by following the links.
3 – Explore
Check out our full description of what we do, that is, what areas of study our counselors/thereapists focus on. We work together to support each other in providing the best awareness and approach to resolving lines toughest difficulties.
Request A Counselor
Ready to get started? Call (503) 837-3449 or use the button below to begin.