KINGSTON — His business card may describe his services as “individual and couples counseling” and “adult development and actualization,” but Chad Hattrup believes his practice as a psychotherapist goes much deeper than just talking about problems.

“Helping someone learn more about themselves,” he described his practice. “To know thyself.”

Hattrup tries to help his clients get through such issues in the office he shares with a massage therapist and chiropractor at the Harbor Healing Center, located on the second floor of the Old Kingston Hotel.

Influenced by Freudian, Buddhist and Socratic teachings, he believes that people don’t necessarily know themselves very well. One way to look at it is that people spend all their energy trying to be who they think they should be, as set by society’s ideals, he said. At the same time, while they may express true characteristics of themselves, there may be other characteristics that they don’t know they have that need to be explored.

“I don’t know who I am. I thought I knew who I was but I’m starting to question that,” are common statements or feelings from his clients, Hattrup said. While it is more common to hear of people who have issues as adults because of problems in their childhood, there are others who function normally in society but still feel that something just doesn’t feel right.

A mid-life crisis is one example of how people deal with that “something is wrong” feeling, Hattrup said. They tend to turn to materialistic solutions, such as buying expensive cars, but that just makes it worse, he said. Hattrup is also finding that this feeling is starting to occur in those who are in their 20s and 30s.

He sees himself as an example of what he is trying to teach. Hattrup has a business degree from University of Washington, has traveled the world, is married and has a child. He was working in the sales and marketing industry for more than a decade, living in a half-million dollar home on waterfront property in Seattle before he started feeling something just wasn’t right. One day, he looked at his bookshelves in his home office and noticed they were lined with non-fictions books, primarily on philosophy and clinical psychology.

“I thought, ‘Maybe that’s what I should be doing,’” he said.

Hattrup earned his masters in clinical psychology from Vermont College in Brattleboro, Vt. and did a year long internship with Kitsap Mental Health in Bremerton. He has been running his own practice for about two years. At the same time, he is working toward his Ph.D. through the Saybrook Graduate School in San Francisco, Calif.

While he has had experience working with adults with clinical issues, such as problems with early childhood development and sexual abuse, he wants to work with adults who are functioning more normally in society but know that they want to grow even more.

“My real interest is helping adults growth further than what society wants,” he said. “People naturally, intrinsically want to grow beyond that.”