Dr. Buening earned his PsyD from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. While in school he worked as a Guardian Ad Litem for youth with disabilities, a substance counselor for the San Francisco County Jail, interned at a community clinic in Oakland, as well as for the San Francisco Mobile Crisis Team and in psychological assessment for San Francisco County Foster Care. He moved back east to complete an APA accredited clinical internship at the New York City Children’s Center, Queens, then served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stony Brook University’s Krasner Psychological Center-Mind Body Clinic Research Center Consortium Program. In New York, he treated children and adolescents both at the state hospital in-patient unit and later in a Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP). During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was a milieu counselor for hospital staff at Stony Brook University Hospital in Long Island.

In 2020, Dr Buening founded Sequoia Therapy, an independent practice in Brooklyn, NY. Sequoia Therapy gives families and individuals the support needed to embark on their path toward better recognition of the life they long to live, through the lens of who they are. Sequoia Therapy uses a client-centered, integrative approach combining techniques of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with psycho-dynamic lens to treat depression, anxiety, PTSD, emotional dysregulation and skills based coping.