About
Somatic, Parts Work, and Relational Queer Therapist, Trainer, Consultant
Who I Am
Hi! I am a queer non-binary femme and AuDHD therapist, speaker, and consultant with more than 15 years of experience working in mental health, as well as social justice and educational work. I am white, a leftist, hypermobile, chronically ill, disabled, fat, and a survivor. I grew up Jewish, working class, and am a proud anti-zionist. I believe in being upfront about my social positioning, so that clients are aware of who they're working with and have the freedom to opt-in or out.
How I Came Into This Work
My passion for this work began when I was working at a sexual assault crisis hotline (way back in 2010!). I heard firsthand how understanding one's embodied natural survival strategies (like the freeze response), quickly helped many survivors release shame surrounding their traumas. It was then that I decided I needed to learn everything I could about somatics and trauma. I was lucky enough to take a Neurobiology of Trauma workshop from Jim Hopper during my time on the hotline. I decided then I would become a therapist trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and help other survivors learn to trust their inherent embodied wisdom.
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I became a client myself when I was ready in my early twenties to address my own traumatic experiences. As a queer person with other expansive sexual identities, I saw a series of therapists who pathologized my and my partners' identities and asked me to waste my precious (and expensive) session time educating them (only to have them frequently pathologize me again). I became angry on my own and my communities' behalf, recognizing and feeling the stigma, emotional harm, and material disadvantage this puts upon already oppressed groups. As I've grown to learn more of my intersecting experiences and identities, navigating the mental health world only gets more difficult to find providers who get it. I know I'm far from alone. That's another big reason why I'm passionate about being a therapist.
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My commitment is to learn and improve my understanding and skills to keep holding the whole selves of my clients and work with them to reduce suffering, increase pleasure and presence, and deepen their relationships to their inner world and to their people and communities.
Before I was a therapist
My experience ranges from case management, crisis intervention, workshop facilitation, classroom education, and radical leftist organizing. I was also an abortion doula, abortion funding hotline staffer, and clinic escort.
I've been a nerd about a bunch of things for a long time: psychology and experiential psychotherapies, relational dynamics, critical pedagogy, leftist organizing and social change, cultic groups and broader cultic social dynamics, cultural studies and critical theory, dog breeds, and punk/indie music.
​​I have worked with a wide swath of populations: young people of all ages, substance users, sexual assault survivors, patients seeking abortions, LGBTQ+ communities, low-income people facing chronic physical illness & psychosis, people affected by HIV/AIDS, among many others.
Certifications
​Relational Life Therapy Level 1, Relational Life Institute
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level 1, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute
Janina Fisher's Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) Level 1, Academy of Therapy Wisdom
Motivational Interviewing, Training and Practice Implementation Institute
Additional training on Internal Family Systems, Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice, Autistic Burnout, Substance Use, Sex Therapy, BDSM/Kink Affirming Practice, Emotionally Focused Therapy and Imago Techniques in Couples Therapy, Polyamory, OCD, other somatic modalities including Polyvagal, and more