About Tom Rohrer

I can relate because…

I can relate because I have had personal and professional experiences that have helped me gain empathy, perspective, and wisdom. I have been challenged to grow, develop, and learn to perform at a higher level.

My life experiences led me to face challenges. I embraced those challenges which led to my personal growth and health, and to my professional specialties.

• Suffering from anxiety, ADD, and unresolved trauma, severely undermined Tom’s athletic and musical career, led to the knowledge and experience to assist athletes and performers.
• Fifteen years of alcohol and drug addiction led to Tom to work in the addiction recovery field and over thirty years of personal recovery.
• Two failed marriages, led Tom to become a Marriage & Family Therapist and into a happy and successful marriage.
• A lifetime of spiritual exploring, led Tom back to Christianity. His curiosity compels him to expand his knowledge of the Bible and spiritual truth.

Human Performance

Personally: Dr. Rohrer ended his most loved sport, basketball, in high school, due to the humiliation of double-dribbling multiple times during many games. He didn’t know why he would get so anxious and did not know what to do. Years later, he learned about and came to understand that he suffered from anxiety and had a repetitive performance problem, also known as the “the yips.”

Professionally: Dr. Rohrer’s focus is mental performance, he primarily works with athletes. In 2002, he received a certificate in Sports Psychology. He assists athletes:

• Neutralize their unresolved issues, resolving their blocks, including those that cause “the yips”.
• Connect with their mental-emotional strengths.
• Learn to perform in the flow state, known as the Zone.

He uses traditional cognitive-behavioral, as well as the advanced approaches, Brainspotting and The Play Zone: based on Polyvagal Theory. His book, Beyond Peak Performance, due out in the summer of 2026.

Positive Recovery From Addictions

Personally: Tom coped with several life traumas and other personal issues by abusing alcohol and drugs for over 15 years. He has been in continual recovery for over thirty years, using traditional treatment approaches, including “anonymous” programs. He also used resources like meditation, Positive Psychology, and spiritual and religious practices.

Professionally: Throughout his professional career, Dr. Rohrer has worked with both substance and behavioral addictions, in many different addiction treatment settings. He introduces spiritually-based recovery as desired. His professional knowledge and experience about recovery and his personal recovery are most valuable to his clients. The evidence of his thorough understanding of recovering from addictions is his comprehensive book, Thriving Beyond Addiction: A Complete User-Friendly Guide.

Relationship Success

Personally: Dr. Rohrer was married when he was 21 and divorced at 22 years old, due to his wife’s problematic behaviors. He remarried at 42 years old and spent ten years keeping a lousy marriage together. Finally, in 2010, he met a lovely woman who was a match and capable of being a healthy partner. They are committed to their marriage and each other, respect each other, and fully engage in the messiness of a quality relationship.

Professionally: Another focus of Dr. Rohrer’s career is helping couples, married or not, build happier and healthier relationships. He believes in the value of a quality partnership, and it is the partnership that is the client, not the individuals. His focus is on solutions, using structural, evidence-based approaches, both partners’ personal strengths and their values to build a mutually desirable future. Tom supports couples who want to use Christian or spiritual principles. If there are deeper unresolved issues or traumas, he primarily uses the Brainspotting approach. He often uses the Gottman Institute resources.

Spiritual and Religious Clarification

Personally: Tom grew up in a Christian family that attended church weekly, and participated actively, including socially. In his early teens, the family was coping with his father’s psychiatric illness. The treatment was in conflict with the church doctrine and his mother decided to withdrew from the church. For many years, Tom explored spiritual concepts and practices with an open heart. In 1998, he returned to Christianity and was baptized for the first time. Today, as a grateful follower of Jesus Christ, he actively participates in church activities, bible studies and service activities.

Professionally: Another of Dr. Rohrer’s focuses is assisting his clients to clarify their spiritual needs and issues and to take action resolve their issues and meet their needs. This usually includes exploring their beliefs and principles verses their churches. Commonly there are conflicts between their personal beliefs and values and their churches doctrine, or an unresolved issue or trauma that has a connection with the church. To resolve this deep work he primarily uses prayer and the Brainspotting approach (“God Spot”) to help the client connect with their inner spiritual self (soul) and God, and to allow the therapeutic shifts and resolution.