Luke Adams: Author, Educator, Activist, Counselor
Frank Luke Adams, Jr., LMFT (CA Lic. 104800, IL Lic. 166001343), is a warm, engaged, holistic psychotherapist offering one-to-one therapies for adults, relationships, and groups in both brief and long-term therapeutic modalities. Luke’s therapeutic approach in based in Integrative Meaning Therapies, and is intersubjective in nature. He draws from various schools of philosophy which have all had a role in the formation of his somatic, environmental, and transpersonal theoretical orientation. Luke also works closely with other practitioners where proper medication or other techniques may be helpful.
Luke believes that you have expertise in you, and seeks to meet you where you arrive and accompany you on the path to where you want to be. He brings to the table his own expertise in approaches and tools, and a style that is both caring and rigorous. Together, sometimes holding mindful space and sometimes directing the efforts, Luke works with you to help you reach your goals. Luke will offer exclusive individual and relationship sessions from offices in San Francisco and Chicago, and will additionally provide confidential video conference appointments to residents of California and Illinois.
About “Sex and Drugs and Rock-n-roll.”
Luke is authoring the forthcoming book, Sobersexual: How to be Dirty When You Get Clean.
Luke believes that sex is a good thing. In fact, he believes that it is a great thing. Having responsible, consensual, actualized, and fully-present sex can be one of the greatest experiences life has to offer. And drugs? People probably would not use mind-altering drugs if they did not make them feel good for a time. The difficulty is that the use of mind-altering drugs can lead to a host of problems.
A good therapist who works with the issues of drugs and/or sex helps patients get from where they are to where they want to be. Luke works with clients to develop a personal standard of sexual health and of dealing with substance use issues. Though Luke is informed in several modalities, in his own practice he does not provide any form of physical bodywork.
This kind of work together can involve coaching, homework assignments, fantasy and dream exploration, archetypal or spiritual work, behavior evaluation, risk and harm assessments, working on the stages of change and reduction of risk and harm, recovery work, and/or the more traditional, exploratory aspects of talk therapy. When appropriate, a therapist doing this work may recommend medical advice, acupuncture, yoga, massage, bodywork practitioners, or surrogates.
Background
Luke Adams earned his Master of Arts degree in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology from Saybrook University in San Francisco (offices in Anaheim), and his certificate in Alcohol and Drug Abuse Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a licensed psychotherapist in California and Illinois in Marriage and Family Therapy. He is a lifetime member of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology.
A longtime progressive community activist, policy organizer, and health care advocate, Adams earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Communication from Adlai E. Stevenson College of the University of California at Santa Cruz. He also served as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive think-tank in Washington, DC. From IPS, he launched—at the height of the AIDS Crisis in America—an initiative for models of training for young Queer1 and Trans2 organizers and activists.
In addition to this very Western, very scientific construct, Adams has studied and worked in several areas of Energy Medicine, including hypnotherapy, sex education, Asian Bodywork Therapies, herbalism, nutrition, and the Usui School of Natural Healing. He became a Reiki Master practitioner with Jon Coleman in 2004, tracing his lineage to Dr. Mikao Usui. A medium by heredity, Adams also studied the writings of Carl G. Jung and of Joseph Campbell, spiritualist sources, and ancient rites and myths to receive his master’s degree for ordained ministry, and was granted an honorary doctorate, with the Nazoreans of Mount Carmel (a group of gnostic essenes).
Adams is a ministerial member of the International Spiritualist Federation. He was ordained to the gnostic priesthood in 2007 at All Saints Episcopal Church in San Francisco by three bishops (Neil Christensen, Kenneth Babauta, and Lou Anthony Bordisso) from several historic lineages of the apostolic succession—both “standard” and gnostic. Adams carries out this worker-priesthood within the “circle of the heart” of Bishop Rosamonde Ikshvãku Miller (Hiérophante de la Voir du Magdalene d’Aix-en-Provence, et Marashin de l’Ordre de Marie de Magdala) of the Gnostic Sanctuary (Redwood City).
Luke Adams is cofounder with Chad Tynan of the not-for-profit organization, Emerge™ —The Adams-Tynan Clinical Foundation. He conducted his psychotherapy internships in integrated medical settings with Tenderloin Health (a past Center of Excellence for impoverished people living with HIV and co-occurring issues), Bayside Marin (a multi-diagnosis treatment and rehabilitation center), San Francisco City Clinic through the Minority AIDS Initiative Targeted Capacity Expansion, and is engaged in consultations with Dossie Easton, MFT (co-author with Janet Hardy of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures).
Footnotes:
- The reclaimed word, “Queer,” refers to persons accepting of their homosexual, bisexual, polysexual, and pansexual orientation, whether by preference or practice—persons who often are also known by identifiers such as “lesbian,” “gay,” “bi,” etc. These persons align with a movement for the freedom of dissidents on “orthodox” ideas of sex and gender.
- The word, “Trans,” encompasses persons whose identity or expression (or both) crosses the artificial gender binary and may include those who are transvestites, transgender, transsexual, intersex, “two-spirit,” “genderqueer,” or in other ways self-identified as non-conforming to heteronormative gender notions. These persons may choose to align with a movement for the freedom of dissidents on “orthodox” ideas of sex and gender.
Affiliations
- Association for Transpersonal Psychology, Lifetime Member
- International Spiritualist Federation, Clergy
- National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Foundation Member
- International Association of Reiki Professionals, Master Practitioner
- National Guild of Hypnotists, Certificate in Hypnotherapy
- American Association for MFT, Clinical Member (also Illinois chapter)
- NAADC: The Association for Addiction Professionals, Member
- Jung Society of Washington (DC), Member
- American College of Sexologists, Clinical Sexologist
- KPACT: Kink and Poly Aware Chicago Therapists, Member
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