Meet Beth!

Positionality: I identify as a Neurodivergent, Queer, Mixed or Biracial (Black/White) cisgender woman.

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My Approach:

Have you felt like forming and maintaining relationships, engaging in consistent self-care, or basic adulting is harder for you than those around you? Do you feel like you’re never quite able to “be yourself,” or even understand what that might look like? Do you feel you’re either “too much” or “not enough?” 

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Whether you’re in the early days of exploring a potential neurodivergent identity, or processing a recent self or formal neurodivergent diagnosis, we may be a good fit. I’m passionate about supporting clients through this process and the complex emotions that come with it. You may feel the excitement, curiosity, and validation of finally understanding more about who you are. You may feel the grief and anger for the time you’ve spent feeling othered or broken.  

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In our time together, we’ll explore ways to pursue a lifestyle that better aligns with your unique needs. Our work together will help you:

• Find confidence in navigating healthy relationships 

• Learn how to self-advocate 

• Identify neurodivergent-affirming people and spaces 

• Escape the loop of high achievement and burnout 

• Become more attuned with the needs of your nervous system and obtain the skills and resources to better regulate its responses

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My approach is challenging yet supportive, direct yet affirming. I emphasize the importance of my clients’ autonomy and weave lessons of self-advocacy within oppressive systems into my therapy interventions. I often encourage my clients to provide feedback on our therapy relationship, adapting my approach to better serve their needs without perpetuating those oppressive systems as well. I avoid holding too tightly to certain restrictive and antiquated rules of professionalism, and let my personality shine through. My clients are able to bring their entire selves into the therapy space: their personality, lived experiences, and identities won’t be shoved in a drawer. I believe self-disclosure is an authentic presentation of what makes us human and is a beautiful and powerful component of our work together.

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Theoretical & Clinical Orientation:

• Neurodivergent-Affirming: I work with clients to understand their neurotypes and work towards a lifestyle in which they can be their full selves, free from forcing themselves to fit a mold that was never made for them. I see neurodiversity as necessary and valuable, not something to be fixed or cured. I believe self-diagnosis is valid, and lived experience should be valued above outdated research done on populations that lack diversity across all categories. 

• Lived Experience First: I prioritize the client’s lived experience and avoid perpetuating unnecessary hierarchies that tend to place counselors as the expert in the room. I explore the developmental, interpersonal, and multicultural components of a client, and their narrative, to build a strong understanding of various contextual factors that contribute to client strengths and challenges.

• Social Justice Lens: As a neurodivergent, queer, Black, biracial, cisgender female, my professional practice is rooted in leveraging my various identities and privileges alongside themes of resilience, community care, and social justice. I center the values and methods that move counseling towards a practice of cultural affirmation and responsiveness, and away from the myth of “cultural competency” that is traditionally fed to clinicians. I believe that all clinicians should be actively working to change the systems that fuel clients’ challenges. I believe that you cannot truly heal in an unwell society unless we are using our privileges, sources of power, and access to various spaces to heal and rebuild our communities and systems. 

• Trauma-Informed: Many of our narratives are marked by various forms of trauma we’ve experienced over our lifetimes. Whether it’s physical, emotional, racial, developmental, relational, etc., I utilize psychoeducation to normalize and legitimize my clients’ experiences and rely on narrative and somatic practices to make space for the mental, emotional, and physical manifestations of trauma that may show up for my clients.