About me and why I started expedition minds institute

I’m Tommy Adanalian, LCSW, LAC, and the founder of Expedition Minds Institute. For over a decade, I’ve worked as a licensed clinical mental health professional supporting individuals and teams in high-stress, high-stakes environments, including first responders, healthcare professionals, and athletes.

Exploration has always been driven by curiosity— the desire to push into the unknown and test the limits of what’s possible. At the same time, operating in extreme environments places unique demands on individuals and teams. Performance, decision-making, and relationships are tested under pressure, often in moments where there is little room for error.

Throughout my career, I’ve worked with people in those kinds of moments. My work has taken me into crisis intervention and disaster response, where I’ve helped individuals navigate acute stress, critical incidents, and the psychological impact that follows. In those environments, I’ve seen firsthand how quickly things can escalate and how important it is to think clearly, regulate stress, and stay connected as a team when it matters most.

In addition to crisis work, I’ve spent years working with athletes, helping them improve focus, manage pressure, and perform at a high level. That performance-based lens has shaped how I approach mental health— not just from a recovery standpoint, but from the perspective of optimizing how people function in demanding environments.

I’ve also led therapeutic backpacking programs for first responders, where the environment itself becomes part of the experience. These trips reinforced what I had seen across settings: when individuals and teams are placed in challenging, unpredictable conditions, the same core skills become essential— adaptability, communication, leadership, and the ability to manage stress in real time.

Over time, it became clear to me that explorers sit at the intersection of these worlds. They are often high-performing individuals operating as part of a team, navigating uncertainty, managing risk, and working through challenges in real time. They are also deeply curious— driven to better understand their own performance and how to function more effectively as a team while pushing the limits of human potential.

I created Expedition Minds Institute to focus specifically on this space.

It allows me to bring together my experience in mental health, crisis response, peak performance, and team dynamics into a setting centered on education, training, consulting, and research. This work steps beyond the boundaries of a traditional clinical practice and applies what I’ve learned directly to the realities of exploration— helping individuals and teams prepare for, operate in, and recover from expeditions in extreme environments.

At its core, Expedition Minds Institute is about helping people learn to think clearly, adapt effectively, and work well together in the environments that push them the furthest.

Outside of my professional work, I spend as much time as I can in the environments I support— backcountry skiing, mountain biking, paddling, and exploring remote places, often alongside my dog, Dakota. These experiences aren’t separate from my work— they directly shape how I understand performance, resilience, and what it takes to operate well when conditions are unpredictable and the stakes are high.