Meet the Therapist
It’s so nice to meet you!
I’ve been an independently licensed therapist since 2013, and I’m so grateful to get to do this work.
A few bits about me:
In the therapy space, I approach the work holistically and client-centered, with a healthy dash of humor and connection (and astrology and Tarot, if that’s your speed).
I’m your friendly neighborhood bisexual who happened to come out later in life (after already being happily partnered in a relationship with a cis man).
My cat, Samuel, is my greatest joy, and he will inevitably make some appearances in our sessions (don’t worry, I trust his ability to keep things confidential).
I’m an exvangelical who has been able to find so much healing through a more witchy type of spirituality - deconstruction is hard, but it’s not impossible!
I love shows and movies, the sunshine, walking, music that speaks to my soul, and eating delicious food.
I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in 2018, and it took me about 4.5 years to finally find a community here. (Making friends as an adult is hard!)
My morning ritual includes: a warm drink, journaling, pulling Tarot and/or oracle cards, and some movement.
I have lived experience with mental health struggles, and I find that this really has been a helpful piece of supporting others in their own mental health journeys.
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A little about my background:
I graduated from Anderson University with my bachelor’s in psychology in 2008. (And yes, this was a religious school…and it was also where I began my religious deconstruction!)
I then went on to Roosevelt University and got my master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling in 2011.
I’ve had clinical experience at a LGBTQ+ community center, a community social work agency, a hospital outpatient clinic, an insurance company providing behavioral healthcare coordination, and in private practice (both in Illinois and in California).
I’m also a holistic nutritionist and wellness coach with a focus on embodiment.
A Note
I was a therapist in Chicago for several years before moving to California in 2018. When I first landed on the west coast, I chose to shift my work into coaching, which I’ve been doing since 2019. And while I love that work and my coaching business, I felt pulled to reenter the therapy world! I’m excited to be in this work again after a hiatus.
And also…I sometimes struggle with what it means to be a therapist.
I’m a queer woman who strives every day to engage in the world within an abolitionist framework, and I find that parts of the therapy profession and how it can manifest don’t always align with that.
Diagnoses, inequitable systems, ableism, the family policing system, mandated reporting, lack of nuance or cultural understandings, the lack of Collective struggle, the coerciveness found in so many treatment systems, the ways it encourages us to police each other, the ways so much of therapy reinforces a colonial, patriarchal, white supremacist world…I could go on and on.
There’s a lot that’s problematic about the mental health field. And some days, I feel uncomfortable that I’m still working within it.
I also don’t believe that therapy is the only option…first, because it isn’t (there are so many healing modalities that help people), and also it has historically been (and is still currently, in many ways) used as a tool of the larger white supremacist, colonial, imperialistic, capitalist systems that we’re currently trapped under.
I find that often, therapy can hyper-individualize everything, and suddenly we’re having pretty understandable reactions to horrific systems or situations and asking ourselves why we feel the way we do…even being led to believe that there’s something wrong with us, clinically or diagnostically.
But maybe the feelings you’re struggling with make sense…and maybe we can work together to both normalize them within the context of the world we live in, and also explore ways that you might access more ease and fulfillment in a system that doesn’t make that very simple to figure out.
This work is a collective struggle, and there is nothing “wrong” with you. And also, I do believe that therapy still has the potential to help you explore the ways in which living doesn’t feel so alone, so tough, so disempowering.
It’s not often easy or quick…but it’s possible. And that can be enough hope to get started.
