About Me
Hi, friend. Paul Cohen (MSW, LSW, JD) here. I am a therapist, coach, educator, and advocate. I earned my academic degrees from Duke, Georgetown, and Rutgers Universities. Through Middle Way With Paul, I provide 1:1 coaching, educational resources, and organizational consulting on mindfulness, somatic awareness, and psychedelics. I also advocate for a healthy and well-regulated psychedelic ecosystem.
(Please note that though I am licensed as a social worker and a lawyer, I do not provide psychotherapy, clinical mental health treatment, or legal advice through my coaching and consulting practice at Middle Way with Paul.)
My work is informed by the yearlong psychedelic facilitator training I completed at the SoundMind Institute, where I deepened my expertise in the healing use of psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness. I have also completed the Hakomi Institute’s yearlong Comprehensive Level 1 training on mindful somatic therapy (and am currently enrolled in Level 2).
My personal practices of meditation, breathwork, writing, martial arts, surfing, yoga, and honoring the weekly day of rest (the Sabbath) also deeply inform my work. On another level, so does my quasi-religious practice of watching the Philadelphia Eagles on Sundays.
I’m still learning why I chose the name Middle Way with Paul for my coaching practice.
Biographically, I grew up trying to find a way to embrace the vast differences between my parents, especially along the lines of religion (Catholic—Jewish), politics (left—right), and, just to paint a picture, height (over 6 ft — barely 5 ft). This has deeply shaped my ability to empathize with different perspectives.
My life has been transformed by my meditation practice and by Buddhist teachings on the Middle Way. The more that I have been able to embrace “both/and," the more I have felt at home. Work and play, pleasure and pain, joy and grief, earth and sky, life and death. All held right alongside each other. As the poet David Whyte reminds us, our task is not to choose between these seeming opposites, but to live out the conversation between them. I help my clients to move towards this way of living.
My life has led me to work with high-achieving professionals going through a transition. I began my own career as a lawyer, working for over a decade at organizations including Ropes & Gray, a federal appeals court, and the Clean Air Council before life called me to transform my work.
My path has also led me to specialize in supporting those going through grief and loss. The biggest transformation in my adult life was catalyzed by the grief I experienced after my wife and I lost Izzy, River, Finn, and Grace, our children who never walked this earth. I now serve as a peer loss support dad through Three Little Birds Perinatal. One of the most meaningful practices in my life is connecting with other loss parents. I also run support groups for men and for those experiencing grief and loss.
Grounded in Real-World Experience
Here are some of the organizations my clients have found the courage to step out of, or move into, as they navigate a transition. Also listed are some of the organizations I've consulted for.
