Harvey D. Cottrell

08/21/2026

07/31/2026

I am excited to announce that I am now fully licensed in the Great Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Credential ID LICSW1121630

07/24/2026

Happy to announce that I am expanding my practice once again. I am now a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the great state of Oregon.

07/10/2026

There comes a point in every life when we are forced to confront a difficult truth:

We do not have control over other people.

Not over the ones we love.
Not over the ones we try to help.
Not over the ones we desperately wish would choose differently.

As a therapist, I have watched people heal in extraordinary ways. I have also watched people continue down paths that led to suffering despite every conversation, every recommendation, and every opportunity to choose another way.

As a son, I have watched addiction take someone I loved.

As a human being, I have learned that powerlessness is not failure—it is reality.

And strangely, accepting that reality has become one of the greatest sources of peace in my life.

When we stop trying to control what was never ours to control, we are finally free to give our attention to what has always belonged to us: our character, our response, our capacity to love, and our willingness to remain present.

The wonder of powerlessness is that it asks us to surrender the illusion of control without surrendering hope.

Because even when life feels uncertain, even when grief is close, even when the future is hidden...

there is still something beautiful unfolding.

— Harvey Cottrell, LCSW
*The Inner Room*

Harvey Cottrell, LCSW, Author of, "The Inner Room."

06/05/2026

What if love isn't something we create, but something we uncover?

My latest *Dating in the Wild* essay explores a question I've been wrestling with for years: What is love?

Sometimes the greatest barriers to connection are the ones we carry within ourselves.

Harvey Cottrell LCSW, Author of "The Inner Room."

06/04/2026

Many people enter dating hoping to be chosen.

Many people stay in relationships hoping not to be abandoned.

Few people ask whether they are abandoning themselves.

My newest Inner Room reflection explores congruence, fragmentation, and why the deepest forms of love may begin when we stop performing and simply allow ourselves to be known.

Harvey Cottrell, LCSW, Author of "The Inner Room."

04/27/2026

04/24/2026

**Dating in the Wild 🌿**

Why does dating begin to feel less like connection…
and more like strategy?

Swipe left.
Swipe right.
Keep a few in the queue just in case.

And somewhere in all of that…
we start losing the very thing we’re looking for.

What if dating isn’t meant to feel like a game to win?

What if it’s more like the wild?

Unscripted.
Uncurated.
Alive.

In the wild, nothing performs to be chosen.

The willow bends—but stays rooted.
The daylily blooms—without asking permission.
The dandelion returns—again and again, still offering something.

Maybe healthy dating looks more like this:

🌱 Staying grounded in who you are—even when something excites you
🌼 Letting yourself be seen—without turning into someone else to be liked
🌾 Taking a chance—without needing certainty first

Not everyone will be a match.

But everyone you sit across from
is a human being with a story, a longing, a life unfolding.

And there can be something sacred in that.

Even if it’s just one conversation.
Even if it doesn’t continue.

So maybe the question shifts:

Not *“How do I win this?”*
But *“Can I be present enough to see what’s real here?”*

You’re not trying to be chosen.

You’re learning how to meet another human being
without losing yourself.

And that changes everything.




.

— Harvey Cottrell LCSW

Harvey Cottrell, LCSW Author of The Inner Room