Charlie Donaldson, MA, LLP, LPC is the co-founder of the Men’s Resource Center and founder of West Shore Counseling Services. His life passion, the exploration of the human psyche, first presented itself in his love of literature, particularly in the novels of Joyce, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. After teaching for many years, in mid-life he found a new venue for his fascination as a counseling psychologist. He received an MA from Western Michigan University in 1993 and established an agency that focused on men and men's issues, and offered interventions for abusive and chemically-dependent men.
Charlie says he gained his greatest fulfillment as a counselor in running a long-term men's therapy group, Transitions, a program based on the assumption that change is what happens to us and transitions are how we handle change. He states that he repeatedly watched men grow into more accountable, compassionate persons who learned to develop more honest and intimate relationships.
Charlie is a co-author of Stop Hurting the Woman You Love: Breaking the Cycle of Abusive Behavior. He has presented on approaches to therapy with men in numerous settings, and has assembled manuals and worksheets for treatment providers in their work with court-referred clients, worksheets for facilitating domestic abuse groups and substance abuse worksheets.
Having recently retired from his full-time clinical practice in Holland, Charlie relocated to Beaver Island, Michigan. There, he conducts phone and Skype counseling, facilitates a men's group, and sees clients at the Island Retreat Center. Charlie is presently working on a book on men and intimacy. He says he has found the island to be the perfect environment for writing what he's learned as a practitioner and as a man.
Charlie still maintains ties with the Men's Resource Center in Holland serving as coordinator and consultant, as well as providing seminars there for facilitating groups and handling resistant clients. He blogs for the Men's Resource Center of West Michigan and creates e-products designed to help men and their intimate partners.
You can reach Charlie on Beaver Island at 231-448-3300.