INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH ADULTS
Individual and group therapy provided through telehealth only at Portland Mental Health & Wellness.
I offer a sacred, safe, non-judgmental space for individuals to look inward for the answers that are already within. I work from a non-pathologizing, Internal Family Systems (IFS) informed and Gestalt theoretical model, which integrates multicultural, and feminist traditions, and incorporates a trauma-informed approach; an important framework for working with already marginalized communities. I also conduct WPATH-based biopsychosocial assessments for gender-affirming surgeries.
For more information about my educational and clinical background, please view my CV.
“Trusting ourselves or other people is a vulnerable and courageous process.”
PHILOSOPHY & APPROACH
I am the Affirm Two Spirit, Trans & Nonbinary (2STNB) Program Manager, Remote Team Clinical Director, as well as an LPC (OR #C5603) and LMHC (WA #LH61177718) at Portland Mental Health & Wellness. Clinically, I work from IFS-informed, gestalt, multicultural, and feminist traditions. As of May 2024, I am also a Certified Body Trust® Specialist. These traditions are unified through a common goal of cultural humility and personal empowerment. Furthermore, I am proactively engaged in the imperfect process of an anti-racist practice.
None of us fits perfectly into our labels, none of us is fully know through the labels we choose, nor are we as individuals representatives of the labels we do align with. I believe patients strive in their own unique way toward wholeness, congruence, authenticity, and growth. I believe that therapy provides a pathway toward growth and reconnection through the exploration of ways in which the patient’s wholeness has been disrupted in and by unsupportive, incongruent, or toxic relationships, environments and systems. I work with a variety of people on a variety of identity and life issues, including:
SPECIALITIES
Body Activism (e.g., Body Trust, fat liberation, relationship with the body)
Gender Identity (e.g., two-spirit, transgender, nonbinary (2STNB), and questioning)
Race/Ethnicity (e.g., areas of privilege and non-privilege, specifically addressing intersections of power, privilege, and oppression)
Sex (e.g., pleasure, stigma, kink/BDSM)
Sexuality (e.g., queer, pansexual, asexual, aromantic, demisexual, questioning)
Spirituality (e.g., integration with marginalized identities, spiritual/religious trauma)
Trauma (trauma-informed and broad-based multicultural feminist approach not limited to PTSD; inclusive of marginalized identities and experiences with micro/macroaggressions)
I strive to provide a therapeutic relationship in which any topic is welcome. I utilize a trauma-informed, whole person approach in order to explore not only the strengths and concerns of the mind, but also of the body, spirit, and relationships. Attending to these areas, the places in which they overlap and their integration or disconnection allows me to gain a more complete picture of you as a human, uncover patterns, and engage in support of your journey to a more full and self-compassionate relationship to self and then others.
“When something happens to the body that is too much, too fast, or too soon it overwhelms the body and can create trauma. Contrary to what many people believe, trauma is not primarily an emotional response. Trauma always happens in the body. It is a spontaneous, protective mechanism used by the body to stop or thwart further or future potential damage. Trauma is not a flaw or a weakness. It is a highly effective tool of safety and survival. Trauma is also not an event. Trauma is the body’s protective response to an event or a series of events that is perceived as potentially dangerous.”