I identify as a peer-clinician, as a psychiatric survivor, and as a clinician with lived experience. What that means is that it’s my own personal experiences with mental health / trauma (and as a survivor of harm within the mental health system) that led me to become a therapist. It’s also these experiences that drive me to keep showing up for my clients every day. This work has always been personal to me. 

Decades before I practiced therapy, I engaged with the Mad Pride movement, meaning that I followed in the footsteps of 1970s organizers who claimed experiences they had, often labeled as “mental illness,” were, in their own estimation, more accurately described as Dangerous Gifts. As a youth, I struggled with a lot of the basics of survival while learning to organize alongside Black and Brown queer and trans young people in Detroit, and across the state, the region, the country, and even further regions of Turtle Island (the land mass also known as North America). I spent countless hours during my early years sitting in the offices of underpaid, undertrained, under-engaged, and under-resourced social workers who didn’t know how to help me.

My community includes intimate relationships with immunocompromised, d/Disabled, Mad, mentally ill, neurodivergent, and chronically ill folks; with Black and Brown queer and trans folks of all ages; with low-income and unhoused folks; with trauma survivors; and with all manner of organizers and activists. As an attachment-based therapist, I know that these formative relationships shape all of the most vital aspects of how I approach and engage with our work together — my values, beliefs, and priorities, as well as my understanding of how to form connections, trust, authenticity, and safety in relationship with people and communities who have been forced into chronic disconnection, and for whom safety is hard-won, if it is attainable at all. I believe the ultimate outcome of our work together will relate directly to the strength of the relationship we create together — essentially, in order to create greater relational safety, you have to build a safe (or “safe enough”) relational container. That means us getting to know each other, being vulnerable, and creating opportunities for you to take informed risks towards deepening self-awareness and vulnerability. Ample research demonstrates the therapeutic relationship is more important in determining therapy outcomes, than even the type of therapeutic approach or “modality.” 

As a trauma therapist, I know that the experiences we have in our lives have everything to do with our present-day relationship to mental health. In order for us to heal, we must uncover new ways of experiencing safety, trust, control, esteem, and intimacy. Trauma changes our brains, but so do healing relationships, experiences of success and competency, affirmation, recognition, validation, joy, self-discovery, and self-compassion. We can work together towards accessing opportunities for those experiences, as well. 
As a gender specialist, a trans person, a Black person, and as a Mad/Disabled peer-clinician, I know that marginalized people have never been recognized by licensed professionals as the experts on their own identities, lives, experiences, and bodies. I believe I have a responsibility to be part of changing this dynamic. My practice recognizes the importance of your consent and bodily autonomy, and I do my best to help you protect these. I view you as a partner in the work together, and as my primary consultant. I will check in with you often about your experience of our work together, and respond to your insights as I’m able, giving consideration to best care practices for your presenting support needs and/or therapeutic goals and priorities. You are the expert on you, and as much as possible, I’ll support you having final decision-making agency in your care, while making information from my own training and experience accessible to you, when and where that’s helpful.

Because of who I am and where I come from, I do not excel in providing/teaching “coping skills,” or other emotional management techniques, although I have numerous colleagues who do take this approach, and am always happy to assist with a referral, if this approach feels like a better fit to you, or is closer to what you’re looking for in a provider. My work is mostly about gaining deeper levels of self-understanding and self-compassion. Many of my clients enjoy learning about how their minds and bodies work in greater depth, and are at a place in their life where, rather than simple “feeling better” or working towards symptom management, their goal is to fully feel emotions they don’t often give space to, or allow themselves to acknowledge, or to share experiences that others often minimize, don’t know about, overlook, or can’t relate to,  in the presence of an attuned supportive person who can see them clearly and accurately in the fullness of their identities, while recognizing and honoring the experiences they have had in life. I find it helpful to stay grounded in a daily practice of compassion for myself and others while doing this work, remembering here that “Compassion” comes into the English language by way of the Latin root “passio,” which means to suffer, paired with the Latin prefix “com,” meaning together – to suffer together. I believe this joining experience of togetherness–especially for folks who have experienced long periods of isolation, feeling (or being) misunderstood, or experiencing themselves as “other” —  is the most critical mechanism of change in therapy.

It’s important for you to know that, while all therapists’ work is informed by our personal experiences, and it’s relevant to understand some of these to help you choose a practitioner, therapists’ work calls us to always separate our own needs and experiences from those of our clients. We are trained to relate and see connections, but also to remember that every experience is different (even within communities). Our task is to use our experiences to help us accurately attune to yours, while at the same time recognizing and responding to the areas where your realities, wants, and needs differ from our own. I commit to ongoing self-evaluation and participation in reflective supervision to ensure the impact of my personal experiences does not impair my clarity and agency in our work.