Community Highlights: Meet Eric Williams of Coastal Family Services, PLLC and Coastal Family Media, LLC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Williams.

Hi Eric, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from Albany, Georgia. I earned my degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, and then joined the Army in 2001. My military career started at Fort Benning, Georgia, and I was actually in basic training when 9/11 happened. That moment shaped a lot of what came after. Over the course of my five years in the Army, from 2001 to 2006, I was stationed at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, then Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, then back to Fort Benning, followed by Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, Korea, and finally Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where I served in the 82nd Airborne as a paratrooper and non-commissioned officer. In 2005, I deployed to New Orleans, Louisiana in support of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. That experience, along with my time in the military overall, shaped how I think about discipline, structure, and showing up for people even when it’s hard.

After I transitioned out of the military in 2006, I started Coastal Family Services, PLLC in 2007, a virtual outpatient counseling practice that’s grown from a solo operation into a group practice serving clients across North Carolina and Georgia.

From 2016 to 2021, I worked as a Military and Family Life Counselor at Fort Bragg, which gave me a front-row seat to what military families actually carry, and how underserved that population often is when it comes to mental health support. I earned my PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision in 2018, and in 2021 I stepped into a role supervising a team of 30 clinicians on that same military installation.

Along the way, I’ve also become a professor teaching graduate-level counseling students, written a book on marriage communication, and built out proprietary frameworks that come directly out of nearly two decades of sitting with couples and families in session. One of those is G.R.A.C.E., which stands for Gratitude, Respect, Accountability, Compassion, and Empathy.

Personally, I’m a husband of 20 years and a father of three (an autism dad to my twin sons and a “girl” dad to my daughter). That part of my life isn’t separate from my clinical work, it’s actually a huge part of why I do what I do. A lot of what I teach clients about repair, communication, and showing up for the people you love, I’ve had to live out in real time in my own home.

Where I am today is really an extension of all of that: still practicing, still teaching, and now building out media and coaching work, a podcast and a course called Origin Code, to reach people who might never sit in a therapy session but still need the same tools.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Honestly, no, it hasn’t been a smooth road, and I don’t think anyone’s really is.

When I got out of the military in 2006, finding work was tough. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go back into the mental health field. I’d only been in North Carolina for a year at that point and had no family here. My brothers and parents were all back in Georgia. The only reason I stayed was because I’d met my wife and fell in love with her, but that came with its own fear. I was a Black man with no job, unlicensed, five years removed from the mental health field, living in a state that wasn’t mine, off of my girlfriend at the time. That was a scary place to be. I lost a few jobs during that stretch too, because I didn’t adjust well to civilian life. The military teaches you a certain way of operating, and it took time to unlearn some of that and figure out how to function in a civilian workplace.

Being an autism dad has added its own layer of struggle over the years too. My twin sons are nonverbal, diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disability, autism, ADHD, and a seizure disorder, and they can tend toward aggressive behavior. During those early years, we were driving an hour one-way just to get them to a school equipped to work with kids with autism, while I was studying for licensing exams, working, and building Coastal Family Services from the ground up.

Then from 2013 to 2018, I pursued my doctorate while my twins, who were five years old when I started the program, needed constant care and attention. My daughter was born in 2016, right in the middle of all of it. There were nights I sat in a recliner with her lying on my chest, typing my dissertation in the dark because that was the only quiet time I had. I finished the dissertation in October 2017, but there were moments before that when I genuinely questioned whether I should stop the program altogether. There’s no manual for carrying all of that at once. I’ve had to learn a lot of it the hard way.

If I’m honest, the biggest struggle has probably been learning to extend myself the same grace I ask my clients to extend to the people they love.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I wear a couple of hats. My clinical practice, Coastal Family Services, PLLC, is a virtual outpatient counseling practice I started in 2007, licensed in North Carolina and Georgia. We specialize in working with couples and families, and we’re currently transitioning toward a boutique, private-pay model so we can protect the quality and depth of care we provide without being dictated by insurance reimbursement structures.

Alongside that, I run Coastal Family Media, which is where I do coaching, speaking, and content built around a framework I developed called Origin Code. Origin Code is grounded in the idea that a lot of us are operating off of what I call Adopted Truths, beliefs about ourselves and relationships that got wired in early and are still driving how we communicate and connect today, often without us realizing it. I’ve built that out into a course, a coaching program, and I’m developing a podcast that walks through it in more depth.

What sets me apart is that everything I teach comes out of real clinical work, not theory. Nearly two decades of sitting across from couples and families, combined with my own experience as a husband, father, and autism dad, shapes everything from my frameworks like G.R.A.C.E. (Gratitude, Respect, Accountability, Compassion, Empathy) and the 4 Rs (Retreat, Regulate, Reflect, Reconnect) to how I show up in a session or in front of a camera.

What I’m most proud of is that I’ve built something that didn’t exist when I needed it. When I was younger, I didn’t have a lot of models for what healthy communication or repair looked like, especially as a Black man. Being able to hand people language and tools for that now, whether it’s a couple in therapy or someone listening to a podcast episode who will never sit in my office, is the thing I care about most.

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most to me is impact beyond myself. There’s a quote from Frederick Buechner that’s stayed with me for years:

“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn, another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”

That belief shapes how I move through the world.

It starts at home, with my wife and my kids. But I don’t believe it stops there. Every person my family touches, and every person they touch, carries a piece of that forward. I hold onto Proverbs 29:18 and the belief that every person, every marriage, and every family have a divine purpose and vision they’re meant to walk out. When there’s no vision, people drift. My work, whether it’s in a therapy session, in front of a classroom of graduate students, or through Origin Code, is really about helping people see that vision for their own life and family and giving them the tools to actually fulfill it.

That’s the thread that ties everything together for me. It’s not just about getting a couple to communicate better or helping someone regulate in conflict. It’s about helping them find and walk in the purpose they were made for, because I believe when that happens at home, it ripples out further than any of us can trace.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://coastalfamilyservicespllc.com/ and https://coastalfamilymedia.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/purpose_n_hope_dealer/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ericwilliamsphd
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericwilliamscfs/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EricAWilliamsPhD/videos
• Other: https://ericwilliams-phd.com/