Logan Cohen is a professional therapist, a clinical supervisor for the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy and a counseling practice owner in Charlotte, NC. He lives with his wife, their 6-year-old son, identical twin daughters and their three dogs. Despite the enjoyment of early professional success and the beautiful gifts of a healthy and loving family, this was not always the author's life trajectory.
Logan had painful experiences with childhood trauma as a boy. Like most young men, he was taught to keep personal problems private and to fight through discomfort silently in order to be seen as “strong and successful." Also similar to many other young men, this came at the cost of his own mental health. After being diagnosed with ADHD as a young boy and battling addiction as a young man to cope with the unresolved wounds, Logan was headed for the same pitfalls that claim the lives of many men in their prime today.
It wasn’t all dark and gloomy though. In addition to the difficult family experiences as a boy, there was also an extended network of grandparents available to pass on the wisdom of a rich family history. Perhaps the most central of these figures early on for Logan was his “Grandpa Sam," a Holocaust survivor who was rescued from the Auschwitz Concentration Camp by Oscar Schindler. Logan had the pleasure of growing up only a few doors away from Sam and between the captivating stories of surviving World War 2 and meeting immediate safety needs, Sam’s home became a favorite location for Logan as he sought refuge from the chaotic dynamics of his own childhood home. Even though Logan did not appreciate the weight and depth of these life experiences in his earlier years, themes of personal survival and community resilience became a central source of influence throughout the author’s life as an adult.
After completing an undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia, Logan answered a call to adventure as a counselor and teacher with at-risk youth in a wilderness-based correctional facility located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains for three years. It was there in this spartan natural setting, with no electricity and temporary housing built with hand tools, that Logan got sober from his addiction, discovered his own purpose as a natural healer and observed the medicinal forces of intentional community living. After completing what he calls his "second coming of age" in the Appalachian wilderness, Logan went back to graduate school at Lewis & Clark College for additional training in Counseling Psychology with a goal of understanding and recreating these restorative dynamics in a modern therapeutic setting. Today Logan is a regional leader in the professional academic community, where he provides ongoing clinical training to other mental health professionals and healthcare workers around cultural competency with men, trauma recovery and violence prevention using evidence-based models.
Based on his own life experiences and healing journey, Logan decided to devote his work to serving those who are going through their own difficult life transitions by empowering them to break through barriers left from old unresolved wounds, heal themselves, and re-align with their life’s purpose for creating shared meaning with their own gifts as a valued community member.