Michael Michnya

Michael Michnya focuses on relationship-building and personal growth, guiding parents, couples, creative people and families through change. He helps parents gain greater cooperation and compliance from their children with less effort so families can enjoy one another. He works with couples to increase their chances of staying happily married. He supports creative clients in overcoming barriers and roadblocks that limit full artistic expression, and he assists diverse individuals and families as they navigate the inevitable and often difficult transitions life brings.

His most successful clients are hopeful about the future, believe positive change is possible and are ready to do the work required. They understand that lasting change comes from within and takes patience and persistence. These clients value their time in session, trust the therapeutic relationship enough to engage even when it becomes difficult, and follow through on work both during and between sessions. Michael looks to collaborate with people who appreciate creativity, risk-taking and direct, honest communication, attend sessions punctually, complete assigned homework and openly describe what is and is not working.

Michael brings 39 years of experience to his practice and is a licensed professional counselor in New Jersey - license number 37PC00214700. His clinical journey began in 1980 as a preschool teacher and led him to volunteer work with the Child Abuse Prevention Effort in 1981. From 1982 to 1986 he served as a counselor at The Bridge, a long-term rehabilitation program for teenage substance abusers. After earning a master’s degree in counseling psychology, he was primary counselor and coordinator for the Cape Counseling Services Family-Adolescent Alcohol Program, providing individual, group and family counseling to children, teenagers and families from 1986 to 1990.

Between 1990 and 2014 Michael worked as a program manager at the Family Service Association, where he trained and supervised more than 30 in-home counselors who served families with children at risk of out-of-home placement. His oversight included a less intensive in-home parenting education program and three juvenile diversion programs. While building a private practice after 2014, he continued providing individual, group and family counseling at a short-term rehabilitation program for adults with addictive disease, at a for-profit community agency and in a federally qualified health center. Across roles as teacher, counselor, coach, program manager and clinical supervisor, Michael has helped thousands of people change their lives for the better.

His vision is of a world populated by kind, loving and compassionate people who live and work together to provide abundance for all. His purpose is to help people learn, grow and make new, better choices that strengthen their lives and relationships so they can live long, healthy, happy, connected and meaningful lives. Michael’s mission uses his signature strengths of creativity, optimism and knowledge, together with research-tested methods, to encourage the personal, relational and spiritual growth that supports durable change.