Nicholas Fry, MSW, LCSW
Founder & Clinical Director of The Uncommon Heart · Army combat veteran · 12 years serving military and veteran communities
"The biggest thing we know helps people change is connection."
People opened up to me before I knew what to do with it.
Early in my career, even when I was processing medical retirements and separations as an Army civilian, people opened up to me in ways others found unusual. I was honored that so many felt comfortable sharing their stories with me. I also felt uniquely helpless about what to do other than listen and try to identify with them.
At some point I realized that if people were going to open up to me in all these different capacities, I should probably figure out what I was doing and find better ways to help them than just listening. Which, actually, isn't nothing. Listening is still the biggest part of the story, and it's what I look for in great therapists and candidates.
Why I built The Uncommon Heart
The origin goes deeper than that, and it has everything to do with why I founded The Uncommon Heart. At 22, coming out of the Army, I was lost, diagnosed with PTSD, isolating, and some days unable to even leave the house. When I did summon the motivation and courage to go to treatment, I felt disconnected from the providers I was seeing.
It wasn't just the age gap or the professional distance. Something was missing: a real relational connection. As much as I know they meant well, there was an air of authority about it. The clipboard, the badge around the neck, looking down at me over the top of their glasses.
It all felt clinical, sterile, and foreign.
It took me nearly a decade to recover from my experiences overseas. What I noticed in the conversations I was having with others, even untrained, was that truly listening and offering empathy made a difference. In school I read study after study showing that the therapeutic relationship is the biggest factor in helping people change. Then professors would turn to the latest theories as if those were the point. Even today, despite all the interventions and fancy treatments that come and go, the biggest thing we know helps people change is connection.
I also saw clinicians at the VA typing with their backs turned while they talked to me. The burnout and stress were obvious. I could tell they were thinking about the next appointment before I even sat down.
That is the foundation of The Uncommon Heart. Not a reaction against what's out there, but an understanding that when we lead with our values and truly connect, the deepest kinds of change become possible.
Outside the office
These days I live in Monument, near the Black Forest, with my family. We spend a lot of time outdoors going for walks and enjoying everything Colorado has to offer. We roast marshmallows, play sports and board games, and yes, even Fortnite together. Quality time is very important to us as a family.
Experience
- Grew a solo practice into a team of 8 therapists serving adults in person in Colorado Springs and online across Colorado
- Provides clinical supervision for pre-licensed clinicians working toward full licensure
- Facilitates a codependency recovery group as part of the practice's group therapy program
- Clinical focus: trauma and PTSD, moral injury, combat veterans, military sexual trauma survivors, and codependency
- Individual, group, couples, and family therapy for combat veterans, active-duty service members, MST survivors, and Gold Star families
- Facilitated 12+ therapy groups, including Cognitive Processing Therapy, Moral Injury, Strength at Home, Caregiver Support, and era-specific groups for Korean War, Vietnam, and OEF/OIF veterans
- Trained and supervised Readjustment Counseling interns and wrote the Vet Center's crisis services procedure
- Helped seriously ill and injured service members transition from military treatment facilities to VA care
- Counseled medically separating and retiring soldiers and their families on benefits, transitions, and next steps
- Led a four-person infantry team through a 15-month deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom
- Awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, Army Commendation Medals, Army Achievement Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation
Credentials & training
If you're on the fence
Whatever you're going through, whatever you think no one will understand, millions of people have walked paths like yours. Not everyone's story is the same. But one thing I've seen in almost everyone who has experienced trauma is the feeling that they don't deserve help, that someone else has had it worse. That belief is just one more thing standing between you and living to your highest potential.
Whether it's guilt, shame, or fear keeping you from starting, you can close that chapter at any time. You start to close it by reaching out. What you'll find on the other side is a blank page, where you get to decide what your suffering meant and what purpose you want to create in its aftermath.