Tom Agan, MHP, Clinical Internship

Young Adults, Adults, Seniors, Men, Parents

Depression, Anxiety, Men’s Issues, Career, Challenging Life Transitions, Grief

Before becoming a therapist, I spent more than 40 years in the business world with many different careers, leading large global teams and earning top rankings as a coach and mentor. I wrote articles published in the New York Times and completed a Harvard MBA. In addition to my professional experience, I’d argue I learned even more from my life experience. As a husband for more than 35 years, and a proud father of three grown children, we’ve lived around the world in London, Georgia, rural Massachusetts, and New York City, before laying our roots in Northbrook (in a house Ferris Bueller ran through before jumping on a trampoline during a day off from school).

After all my experiences, I made the conscious decision to dedicate the next chapter of my life to being a therapist and serving others to live their best life.

One story from my life, showed me the power of how we experience life and how it impacts our daily existence and happiness.

Years ago, I was an instructor at Outward Bound, an experiential, wilderness-based program focused on personal development and growth. One cold, wet evening, I hiked with my group of middle-aged adults in the North Carolina mountains. They were miserable, complaining as we navigated slippery rocks and mud with heavy backpacks and dim flashlights.

A week later, I had another adult group on the same trail under the exact same conditions, and they were the opposite—sharing stories and laughing, making the journey enjoyable. We reached the top in half the time, and the sunrise a few hours later was spectacular.

This showed me how our beliefs and attitudes shape our experiences. While I have faced struggles like being bullied as a kid, wanting to be a better parent, losing a job, and dealing with grief, I also successfully adapted to them in dozens of ways, including starting a new career as a mental health counselor at age 63.

To reshape how you experience life requires effort. Personal growth means clarifying your goals and the meaning you seek—providing an inspiring north star to guide your journey. Personal development involves making decisions, learning skills, taking risks with new behaviors, reflecting on emotions, and learning from the results to get you as close as possible to that place.

I aim to empower you to take the steps you want to create the life you desire while navigating challenges and celebrating successes. I believe almost all thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are protective in some way, even those that are proving problematic for you. By understanding their purpose and re-focusing them, their negative impacts—slowing you from attaining your goals in life—can be reduced.

I am pragmatic, curious, collaborative, creative, and focused on your strengths. I enjoy laughing with my clients and having some fun. Perhaps most importantly, no matter what you reveal, I will not judge you, which is one of the best parts of my job.

Let’s take the journey together!

Adults & Seniors

Ageism is the most common form of prejudice and one I experienced directly upon finding myself unemployable at age 61 in my former business career. Ironically, I wrote about ageism in a 2013 New York Times article ten years before I experienced it. Although, in retrospect, I would have been happier had I become a counselor decades ago! The research is very clear that people with a negative view of aging have a lower quality of life and die younger. Even the notion of the transition into older age, retirement, is changing, becoming far less clear-cut and increasingly extending over time or entailing starting something entirely new (as I have done). And the third phase of life—starting at age 60—increasingly requires a 30-year plan.

The complexity, challenges, and potential opportunities for older adults are growing. However, as a society, we are ill-equipped to maximize this phase of life because of our biases and structural discrimination. For instance, older adults are often viewed as far less likely to benefit from counseling when the research shows the opposite is true—for some mental health and behavioral challenges, older adults have better outcomes than younger ones. It’s the same evidence-based counseling approaches that are used. However, additional considerations come into play given the significant differences between Gen X and boomers and the transitions typical in older age, such as becoming a grandparent and the normal aging process. Having had the first part of a near-death experience, feeling myself leave my body during a deadly Amtrak train wreck, gives me a unique perspective when counseling older adults on decisions later in life and creating their legacy.

Men’s Issues

Men are having a mental health meltdown. In the year 2000, according to the World Health Organization, the male suicide rate in the US was equal to the global average. In 2019, it was double. In 2021, of the roughly 50,000 people in the US who died by suicide, 40,000 were male, although with significant variations according to culture, sexual orientation, and gender identity. In any given year, about 5% of men have serious thoughts about suicide, and ER visits for suicidal ideation are significantly higher for males than females and increase until their mid-40s. Moreover, men are less likely to seek counseling, with only about 25% of counselors being male and declining. Note: my therapist is female and fantastic, but some men strongly prefer a male counselor and struggle to find one. Two completed male suicides have personally impacted me during my lifetime. Career setbacks can be especially devasting to males, given that their attractiveness to others is heavily influenced by how much money they make, combined with typically smaller social and family networks that provide less support during adversity. Often, at the core, it is a fear of failing that can be expressed as anger. Having been fired, I can assure you that it stinks. Through my training, I have gained important insights into male perspectives, frameworks to understand their pressures, and evidence-based interventions to reduce their anguish, improve their coping skills, and rediscover their strengths.

Young Adults

Over the years, I have spent a great deal of time coaching young adults. You can see some of that in my TikTok and YouTube channels, @careerhacks4u. While that has been primarily career-focused, I can now, as a counselor, add to that conversation personal aspirations, private inner thoughts, good decisions and others that miss the mark, emotional challenges, especially with relationships, and strengths.

That’s informed by raising three children who are now young adults and completing my master’s in counseling at age 63 with classmates who are almost all in their 20s and 30s. Compared to prior generations, I see young adults today as more stressed about money, concerned with their mental health, and anxious about relationships (still sorting out the whole digital thing). These force young adults to confront their identity and purpose earlier, making it even more challenging than in the past. While there is never one approach, helping young adults clarify their needs and experimenting with specific culturally appropriate ways to achieve them can be a very effective place to start.

Career Support

Careers have a very unique journey throughout our life. I saw this firsthand through my 40 years in the business world. At different times in your life, you have different goals for financial achievement, purpose, meaning, scheduling and work-life balance.

There are so many factors to consider at different stages of life, and the rewards of finding the right fit to meet your needs. It is incredibly helpful to have someone to support you in the career journey, determining your goals, interests and the process of applying, interviewing and negotiating your contract. Whether it’s your first job, you’re returning to work after being home for a long time, or you’re switching to an entirely different industry, I’d be honored to be a gentle guide to help you achieve your ultimate job!

For Fun…

To book an appointment, 847-919-9096 x.1, [email protected]