Christopher Ecochard

I'm Christopher — Chris — a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Counselor with 18 years of experience working across the full spectrum of mental health and addiction care. I've worked in inpatient detox, residential, partial hospitalization, and outpatient settings, which means I've sat with people at some of the hardest moments of their lives and helped them find their way through. I work with adults and seniors in New Jersey via telehealth, so wherever you're calling from — your kitchen, your car, your lunch break — we can make it work. My approach isn't one-size-fits-all. I'll adapt to you: if you need someone direct and sometimes funny, I can be that. If you need something steadier and quieter, I can be that too. What I bring every time is honesty, real engagement, and 18 years of knowing how to meet people where they actually are.

I pull from a range of approaches — CBT, REBT, Motivational Interviewing, Psychodynamic, and Trauma-Focused CBT — and I use what actually works for the person in front of me. I'm trained and dual-licensed in both mental health and addiction counseling, so I can work with the full picture when those things are intertwined, which they often are. I don't believe therapy has to be somber or overly clinical to be effective. I use humor, metaphor, and creative thinking when it serves the work. I'm direct when that's what's needed. My job is to figure out what moves the needle for you, and then do that — not to follow a script that works for someone else.

Expect a real conversation — not a form to fill out. I'll want to hear what's going on for you in your own words: what brought you here, what you've tried before, what's felt hard, what you're hoping for. I'll ask questions, but I won't pepper you. The first session is less about assessment and more about connection — I want you to leave with a sense of whether this feels right. There's no pressure to have everything sorted out before we start. Most people don't. If you've been going back and forth about whether to try therapy, showing up to a first session is already the hard part. We'll take it from there.