Our compassionate team

Specialties include (but not limited to) Childhood and attachment trauma in intimate relationships, infidelity, high conflict in intimate relationships, LGBTQ.

Hi there, my name is Dana Vince. I am the owner and founder of Healing Hearts Counseling and I’d like to share a little about myself and my journey of building this practice. I grew up on Long Island in New York. After serving in the United States Army for 4 years, I moved to Tampa, Florida where I earned my masters degree in Counseling. It was in Florida in 2006 that I started Healing Hearts Counseling. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to work with couples. I saw in my own life how people who love each other end up hurting each other and I wanted to understand this better and help people learn to love one another well. I wanted to learn how to help people heal their wounded places. I have always had a soft place in my heart for others’ pain. I wanted to understand more about how this love thing works and why it’s so hard. It has become my life’s work to counsel couples and families on how to communicate in ways that nurture one another and form deeper bonds in their relationships. It is important to me to provide a safe and confidential environment where couples and families can talk about the difficult and sometimes painful issues that are causing problems in their lives.

I had my degree and got the appropriate ongoing training to become a couples counselor, but the ones who have given me the most valuable education have been all the couples I have worked with over the years. I never take for granted the trust others place in me to walk their journey with them. I moved to Knoxville in 2010 and it was at that time that I began training in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. That brought a whole new level of understanding and useable tools that I began to implement in my practice. And while I knew the research behind this method was strong, nothing compared to seeing with my own eyes the incredible healing impact this type of therapy had on the couples I was working with and in my own relationships. So I continued my training and efforts to master this model of therapy and in 2012 I became an EFT supervisor and started training other therapists.

It was at this time that my practice had grown beyond my capacity. Being only one person with only so many hours in the day, I had to start turning people away. It tore me up inside to turn people away who were reaching out for help, especially knowing I had such a powerful and effective way to help people get out of pain and distress. So I began hiring and training clinicians to be a part of my practice to see the clients I couldn’t see. This gave me great peace of mind because I could help more people and I knew they were getting the same quality care that I myself aim to provide through trusted colleagues working with me using the same effective model of couples therapy.

As the practice began to grow, it soon became overwhelming to continue to run the practice, teach and train therapists and still do the work I love and find most fulfilling, spending time with and helping individuals and couples heal.

In 2019 I brought on Adam York as my partner. When I met Adam I quickly saw why he had the reputation in Knoxville he had as an incredible helping professional. I got to know Adam well by supervising him in his learning of the Emotionally Focused Therapy model. An already highly educated and experienced therapist, I had urged Adam to go to the training for EFT knowing it would be a great fit and that it would transform the amazing work he was already doing. As I sat and watched his therapy tapes with him, I got to observe what an incredibly compassionate and gifted therapist he is. In doing other projects with Adam, I also got to observe that Adam is a really hard worker with strong ethics and integrity and is a natural leader. With his shared values and vision for how to serve couples and the Knoxville community, I knew he was the perfect fit for what I was looking for in a partner.

Now together, we continue to grow our team of incredibly compassionate therapists who share our passion for helping couples and families and are eager to learn and serve alongside of us. We personally pick and train each therapist that comes into this practice. It is of utmost importance to me that our clinicians share our vision and uphold our values of helping individuals and couples heal and find the connection and joy with one another that they long for.

Specialties include (but not limited to) Christian counseling, infidelity, men’s issues, sex/porn addiction

Hi, my name is Adam York and I am the co-owner of Healing Hearts Counseling. I graduated from Johnson University with my Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and Professional Counseling, and then completed my doctorate in 2023 at the University of Tennessee.

My life’s work is to help people connect. In addition to my work in private practice, I have worked as the clinical director and board president for Relationship Builders Knoxville trying to strengthen relationships all over Knoxville through workshops, mentoring, and supervision. In addition to working with couples, I enjoy supervising therapists seeking to work with individuals, couples, and families. I primarily work from the perspective of emotionally focused therapy, believing that emotion drives the dance between partners, and that we all crave connection and fear isolation.

I have felt the deep confusion that occurs from the pain caused by those closest to us and the deep healing that occurs in the presence of a loving and nurturing relationship. I am passionate to help couples connect, whether they are fighting everyday or struggling to talk about small things. I started to hear about Dana Vince a few years back through therapists and clients of hers. Time and time again, I heard stories of dramatic reconciliation and renewed romance in couples who many other therapists might have written off as hopeless. I continued to hear stories from both men and women of Dana really understanding them and their relationship better than anyone ever had. I reached out to consult with her and quickly discovered that she has a relentless passion for couples and for helping therapists serve them well. I had read about emotionally focused therapy in graduate school, but had not pursued advanced training until Dana had recommended it. I have been supervised or received training from some of the most prominent national leaders in couples therapy and quickly realized that right in our backyard in Knoxville, we had a therapist with every bit as keen an insight into couples relationships as I had ever experienced. She understands couples better than they understand themselves, and more importantly she deeply cares about their relationship and them as people. She is widely known as the most gifted couples therapist in town, and when she asked me to partner with her in practice, I was incredibly flattered and overjoyed at the possibility of creating a space where couples relationships are given new life. I am so excited to join with Dana and the family at Healing Hearts Counseling to help the dream that couples imagine on their wedding day to become the reality that they get to live with every day.

My wife and I have been married since 2006, and we have two boys that we adopted from birth in 2011 and 2016. Do not be surprised if you bump into me and my wife at a sports match or movie with my older son, and if you see a small child shooting basketball or swinging a golf club for an hour or more, that is my younger son, and he will not talk to you much because he is really focused on his craft. When not with our kids, my wife and I enjoy playing strategic board games, hiking, and traveling whenever we can.

Welcome to the Healing Hearts website…you are not here by coincidence. You are here for any number of reasons:  Hurt, despair, confusion, betrayal, or one of the myriad maladies that afflict humans and our relationships.

You have come to the right place. Healing Hearts is a unique group of educated, trained, experienced, and compassionate therapists. I am one of them.

I am passionate about pre-marital and just-married counseling to help you start strong, and helping you strengthen or repair your existing marriage so that it is even stronger.

I have been married for more than 48 years. My wife and I have 3 grown children and 5 grandchildren. I have worked with couples for more than 45 years as a pastor, conference and retreat leader, therapist in agency and private practice settings, and as a Military Family Life Counselor on 7 assignments to military bases around the world. Most recently I have been a therapist at a large prison where I daily encountered men who were the product of and themselves involved in unhealthy, even destructive relationships.

I have a bachelor’s degree in Biblical Education, a Master’s in Counseling and Human Development, and a Ph.D. in Family Studies. I have a Biblical worldview but respect other worldviews. I do not impose my faith or beliefs on anyone. However, if you want to explore and leverage Biblical faith, I can certainly help.

We are created for connection, born to bond, and exist most fully in relationship. Marriage is the most powerful force in the world for either healing or hurt. No one enters a committed relationship entirely free of woundedness and in marriage those wounds can be healed. The result is an astounding depth of self- and other awareness that liberates, heals, and empowers individuals and couples for a love never before imagined.

As a therapist, I want to provide you with a safe place and unconditional positive regard. I will give you the best of my education, experience, and self to equip you for the healing and health you crave and deserve.

“You can’t go back and begin again, but you can start from here and make a brand-new end.”

Specialties – communication and conflict resolution between couples, Christian counseling, addictions, issues of sexual identity.

A bit about me – I’m a husband, father, and marriage therapist. My path towards working with couples began with a desire to meet people in broken places and help them find healing and restoration. It’s a desire rooted deeply in me by my Christian faith, and I pursued this call by seeking study and formation at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, MO in 2009. After finishing my studies in counseling and theology in 2015, I quickly realized that helping couples move from distress to deeper connection was where I found the most fulfillment in my vocation. I pursued further training in the EFT model of working with couples and began my own practice focusing entirely on helping couples move out of their stuck places and into deeper, healing connection. After having our son, my wife and I decided to move closer to family, so we packed our bags, closed shop, and returned to east TN.

Little did we know that we would be moving to Knoxville a mere weeks before the Covid shutdowns. Despite that difficulty, I soon found a tribe of like-minded therapists at Healing Hearts and am so excited to be a part of this team! I truly cannot imagine a better place to continue what has become my vocational passion of working with couples.

When I’m not sitting across from you in the room, you might find me spending a weekend in the mountains with my family, chasing my son around the Zoo, or puzzling over a chessboard.

I believe the most important and lasting thing most of us will do in our lives is to love well those who are closest to us, and no relationship is closer than our committed intimate relationships. They are where most of us will experience both our greatest joys and our deepest sorrows. I consider it a privilege to be able to walk alongside you and your partner for part of that journey.

Specialties include (but are not limited to): marital conflict, family dynamics, parental wounds, and racial trauma, spiritual direction/soul-care.

Hi! My name is Doug Messer. Thanks so much for your willingness to consider working with us at Healing Hearts. Whether you are an individual or a couple in the midst of a challenging season, I know how difficult it can be to even make the decision to go to a counselor. A number of years ago, I was in the same position. My personal experiences and perspective influence my therapeutic approach, and I am always grateful for the opportunity to process life with individuals and couples at various stages of life’s journey. I love helping people understand and value the dynamics of their life story in a safe, nonjudgmental environment, while also inviting them to explore new paths they would like to consider and healthier patterns they hope to establish, for themselves or as a couple.

I have over 20 years of experience in working with a wide range of people from various backgrounds and stages of life in both pastoral care and clinical counseling settings. My primary therapeutic approach is Person-Centered which is present-oriented and enables individuals and couples to realize their internal strengths and resources. I also utilize Narrative Therapy which can help clients externalize problems while realizing their ability to re-author their own story. In addition, I draw from various other therapeutic approaches as is appropriate to each client’s particular needs and goals. Understanding and utilization of various approaches allows me to work with each client in the most effective manner.

I have a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Wake Forest University. I also have a Master’s degree in Religion from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Finally, from many years ago, I received a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with a minor in English from The Ohio State University.I was raised in Cincinnati, OH but have lived in Knoxville for almost 20 years. My wife and I are the parents of four children who range in age from 20 to 8. I enjoy reading, music (especially live), sports, and humor, and working on home-projects. I love the long-running British television show, Dr. Who, and find that watching the show, The Office, is a source of both self-care and “comfort food” for me. I also have a special place in my heart for the late comedian Chris Farley.

Hello, thank you so much for taking the time to visit our website. I am honored that you chose to learn more about me and why relationship counseling is a passion of mine. We are all in relationships, whether it is with a loved one, yourself, family or etc. Regardless of the type, relationships can present challenges. I hope from reading this you are encouraged to allow me to journey with you to the destination of your choosing. It would be my pleasure.

I started working in the mental health field in 2008 and a counselor since 2018. However, this is not the beginning of being in service to others. My entire life, I have enjoyed helping others, even to the point of getting in trouble for doing so. I was scolded for being too nice when trading away my toys to other kids and getting less in return; fancy that.

My mom says I have my grandmother’s heart. As a child, my grandmother would receive so many greeting cards year-round from many people all addressing her as Mother Isom. As a young boy I’d ask her, “Grand mommy, how many children do you have?” She’d reply while laughing, “It’s Grandmother and they call me mother as a term of endearment to show appreciation for the support I have offered.” She taught me God wants us to help one another and it is important to support those in the community as we are all connected. Some of those people still send her cards to this day.

Some thirty years later, I am purposed to support people in their relationships. I have experienced the divorce of my parents, being in a blended family, and marriage. I’ve even had to live with myself, and I promise I was a handful. I can testify that through counseling and the use of Emotionally Focused Therapy, you will have amazing discoveries and experience purposeful growth.

Please join our growing community here at Healing Hearts Counseling. Together, let’s restore and deepen the joy and hope in your relationships. I promise to offer a safe space for those opportunities to be grasped. You deserve it. Your family deserves it. You and your family are important to me, and I am at your service.

Warm Regards,

Mac, your friendly neighborhood counselor

Hi there. My name is Tyler Edmondson, and I recently earned my Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Carson-Newman University. As part of the program, I completed my clinical experiences at Healing Hearts; I am thrilled for the opportunity continue my work here with individuals, couples, and families.

For as long as I can remember, I have deeply valued the process of journeying closely with others into the depths of life. As an adolescent, I could often be found across from one or two other people in a coffee shop, on a hiking trail, or around a campfire, wholeheartedly engaged in vulnerable discussions about relationships, struggles, or personal development. Nearly two decades later, I realized that I was spending my personal time in much the same way, which prompted me to formalize my vocation as a helping professional.

Prior to making my career shift into counseling, I spent 17 years in the youth development field, with the majority of my experiences in day and overnight camp settings. In working with thousands of youth, families, and parents, often for just a few days at a time, I honed my ability to rapidly build rapport and relationships with people. In addition, I gained a knack and a passion for facilitating connection, growth, and healing through intensive experiences, positive risk-taking, and meaningful reflection.

While my work as a counselor does not involve leading individuals in teambuilding initiatives or outdoor expeditions as I once did, it has become clear to me that such activities are often not necessary, as everyday life offers no shortage of intense and challenging experiences. Whether you are encountering distress in your marriage, you or your partner is suffering from a mental health issue, or you are seeking assistance in making future life decisions, I would be honored to walk alongside you in your journey toward growth, transformation, and healing in yourself and deeper connections in your relationships.

In addition to my prior experience as a human services professional, my expertise comes from personal struggles with depression, anxiety, and past relationships, all of which provide me with an intimate understanding of clients’ problems and empathy for them. Also, like other clinicians at Healing Hearts, I have received professional training in Emotionally Focused Therapy, which is supported through research and greatly informs the way I approach my work with clients.

Outside of the counseling office, I am likely to be found having rich conversations with my wife, whom I married later in my life in 2017. I also enjoy any number of active, outdoor pursuits including travel, bird watching, mountain biking, hiking, backpacking, pickleball, volleyball, yard games, and sitting around a campfire playing guitar.

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read my bio. My aim is to support you through whatever roadblocks you may be currently facing and join you in working towards your goals. I typically work with couples, adult individuals, and adolescents over 15. My own pursuit of authenticity looks like prioritizing deeply felt connection and a life ripe with meaning. I use an attachment based lens of Emotionally Focused Therapy to create a safe space to facilitate change and encourage the process of discovery. 

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, in my previous career I worked in aviation. I worked in a variety of positions- from being a flight attendant, flying the friendly skies to a corporate communications manager in the operations control center. My past experiences help inform the way I support you. I recognize that life is a near-constant cycle of change and renewal. We learn to adapt, again and again. 

I graduated from a Master’s of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from East Tennessee State University in December 2023. I received specific training in couples therapy and human sexuality in addition to clinical coursework. Mindfulness as a tool for regulating the body is something I really enjoy incorporating into my work with clients who are open to it. I have been developing my own personal practice of meditation since 2018. In the community, I host sound bath meditations while utilizing crystal singing bowls to provide a gentle path to drop into a trance-like state with ease.

You and your family’s happiness matter to me. I am eager to provide you the best of my skillset, education, and self on this journey to wholeness. I look forward to meeting you soon.

Welcome, my name is Leanne. I have an MA in Counseling Psychology from Sofia University (formerly Institute of Transpersonal Psychology). I received a BA in Communication from UNC Wilmington in 2016, and worked in International Education in the city of Medellín from 2018-19. I am part of the first generation of Panamanian-Americans in my family raised in the US. While I am improving my Spanish skills, I welcome couples where one or both partners speaks Spanish as their first language.

I previously interned with a residential treatment facility for children and adolescents ages 11-17 here in the Knoxville area. Both in my work with teens and with couples, I help my clients face the dilemma that many of our emotional and attachment issues play out in our relationships with our closest loved ones. However, the strongest healing can also happen in these relationships. Emotionally focused therapy can help couples and individuals alike break hurtful patterns of behavior, connect more deeply, and create new ways of relating. I am honored to walk alongside you as you seek to improve this bond.

In my free time, I love listening to music too loudly, lifting weights with my husband, taking naps with our dog Riley, spending time in nature, cooking yummy meals, and exploring new cities. I also have hopes of returning to my love of aerial silks after graduation.

Hi! I am Tad.  “What does terror feel like in your body?” my therapist asked.  “Feel like in my body?” I questioned.  “What kind of silly question is that?”  I wondered.  I had plenty of thoughts in that moment, but I was deeply puzzled. This was the first time someone had asked me to consider what an emotion physically felt like in my body.

This seemingly innocuous question, in my mid-life season, cracked open a window to a vast horizon that was my body.   At that time, I didn’t understand my numbness or disconnection was a normal and embodied trauma response to the profound harm I experienced as a child.  Our bodies have brilliant ways of protecting us from existential pain.  This includes repressing memory, sensations, images and feelings.  Without a safe outlet for our internal pain, our bodies will find a way to externalize it.  My body led me to the sports of triathlon and endurance racing as an adaptive coping mechanism to externalize the harm I endured as a child in a controlled and predictable way.

We humans are really good at professionalizing our pain.  Because of my history of trauma, I naturally gravitated to professions in aviation and the law where I was rewarded for being disconnected from my body.  This adaptive response was effective at helping the younger parts of me find safety in the face of profound unsafety.  However, these ways of being that had kept me safe early in life, became the very things that separated and divided my pursuit of safe and enduring relationships.

Why am I sharing all this?  Hope is contagious. Through my recovery journey, I have learned to hold in my body the truth that I am the most beautiful where I am the most broken. Too many years were spent hiding the tender spaces where I held deep harm. Through the kind and compassionate attunement of others allowed me to begin exploring my story. Instead of holding shame about my story, I began to encounter secure attachment in my recovery journey from childhood sexual abuse, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse.

What would it look like to reimagine your story in a compassionate and safe context?  I would like to share my hope with you!

My desire is to walk alongside dual-trauma couples and families as they begin to imagine a new dance.  My therapeutic approach is person-centered and postmodern, rooted in attachment theory, polyvagal theory, somatic experiencing and narrative therapy within the larger framework of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy.  I am a Level 2 certified Narrative Focused Trauma Care practitioner with the Allender Center.  I am active in a bi-weekly Curt Thompson, MD, Confessional Community™. I believe that our traumas are both rooted and healed in community.  I co-lead several narrative groups.

I am eternally blessed as a father of four beautiful children.  It is a supreme honor to walk beside them as they navigate the mess and majesty of growing into securely attached adults.  We enjoy gardening, hiking, camping, watercolor, cooking, baking and making joyful noises together.  I love to fly fish and hunt elk.  I am an Ironman and ultramarathoner.  I presently fly the Boeing 747 freighter and am a practicing attorney. I am retired from the Tennessee State Guard, where I served in a number of different leadership roles.

Hello, my name is Lynne Noel and I have the privilege of being the Intake Coordinator for Healing Hearts Counseling. Reaching out to schedule an appointment can be uncomfortable and even scary, however I will make it my absolute mission to make this first step in your journey with Healing Hearts as comfortable as I can. You are in great hands and we are here to walk with you on your journey.

I appreciate you taking a moment to get to know me. I moved to Knoxville with my family in January 2020 from just outside of Boston, MA and I am loving the wonderful people and the beauty East Tennessee offers. I received my Masters in Social Work with a concentration of End of Life and Bereavement in 2009 and I am a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker licensed in Massachusetts since 2016. Prior to moving to Knoxville I worked as the Director of Resident Services in affordable housing for 15 years providing families, veterans, persons with disabilities, and seniors with resources to assist them in maintaining appropriate housing. In this role I also wrote and managed grants and implemented programs throughout Massachusetts that decreased the homeless population and increased equity in housing. Having this background I understand the therapeutic work occurring here and I am grateful to be in this space supporting you and the compassionate therapists.

I am passionate about equality, connecting with others, and supporting people on their journey in life. I am blessed with 2 children who keep me busy in their love for Irish Step dancing, karate, violin, theater, and school activities. I love exploring new places, taking in nature’s beauty, traveling to visit my family, and you will rarely find me without a coffee.