Areas of focus:
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Individual Therapy
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Relationship Counseling
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Grief Counseling
Individual Therapy
Some areas I have worked with in individual therapy:
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Relational trauma (past, present and/or ongoing): early childhood trauma; being raised by a traumatized and/or abusive parent or parents; racial and cultural trauma; the trauma of being misgendered
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Relationship patterns that are causing troubles: in partnerships, friendships, family systems
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Experiences of disconnection from your body, feeling unsafe inside it, feeling like different parts of you are fighting inside; body image issues; feeling betrayed by your body
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Depression, suicidality
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Anxiety and panic
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Identity and Selfhood:
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Self-criticism and shame
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Feeling an "in-between-ness" in your racial, cultural, gender, social or religious identity/ies that can make it feel complicated to reconcile all of the different parts of yourself
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Experiences that impact how you feel in your body and in the world--due to: disability/ies, the aging process, shifts in gender/s identity/ies, gender transitioning, questioning sexualities and coming out, life cycle changes, existential crises and changes in belief system/s and/or values, illness and chronic pain
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Reckoning with white supremacy, as a white and/or white + mixed race or mixed culture person: recognizing how white supremacy culture shows up in the world, how it shows up in you and your ancestors, and you want to do better
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Relationship Counseling
I have worked with couples and with adult family dyads (siblings, adult parents and children). I am kink and poly-affirming in relationship work, though I have not yet worked with polycules in my practice.
Couples:
These are some reasons folx seek couples counseling:
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You and your partner are triggering each other all the time, and you feel like your childhoods might have something to do with it
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One partner wants more closeness to feel safe, the other wants more distance to feel safe, and this causes troubles
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You wish you could express what you need to your partner, but instead you bury your feelings and hide your needs
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When you feel vulnerable and want closeness, sometimes you express criticism or rage instead
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You're trying to figure out whether or not you and your partner should stay together
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You're willing to try and see if therapy might be able to help you sort it out
Family Dyads:
Some areas I've worked with:
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Processing past trauma
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Addressing triggers and unhealthy relationship patterns
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Working on setting boundaries
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Having a space to express things that are difficult to say to each other outside of therapy
Grief Counseling
Grief and loss can come up as a result of or as part of a number of transitional experiences, even if positive changes--as well as:
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Loss of relationships or changes in relationships due to illness, death, transition or endings
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Traumatic loss of loved ones to suicide, or homicide: not having the opportunity to say goodbye can leave us with many unanswered questions and ongoing trauma
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Pet loss: losing beloved animals can have an enormous
impact; oftentimes much deeper and more painful than losing a parent or other human loved one. This kind of loss is often not recognized in dominant culture as important. But it is, and the grief is real.