It's not all in your head!
In a culture that marginalizes, silences, and dismisses people’s pain based on body-specific experiences and identities, like disability, race, gender, sexuality, size, age, etc, many of us are left needing to feel heard.
Here, your stories will be listened to, your experiences validated, and your pain believed.
Pain can relegate us to the margins of our own stories. Whether it’s pain felt in your body, the pain of loss connected to illness, infertility or painful sex, the pain of a medical system that has caused you harm as a patient or provider, or the pain of being a highly sensitive person, artist, or creative, living in a culture that doesn’t value those strengths, pain can feel like it renders us powerless.
Our conversations in therapy will collaboratively and creatively give voice to the stories of pain that your body holds, while bringing you to the center of your story, finding places for, and moments of, empowerment, agency, freedom, and authenticity, in the face of pain.
Our bodies hold knowledge and stories; they can also hold pain, discomfort, and dis-ease. My body holds its own stories of chronic pelvic pain which informs why and how I do this work, knowing the importance of my story being heard, my pain being witnessed, and my body being centered in my own therapeutic work. My practice is built on my alignment with reproductive, disability, health, and racial justice movements, and rooted in my life as an artist.
I engage with compassionate curiosity in conversations about (but not limited to):
Chronic pelvic, vulvovaginal, and/or sexual pain that is often gendered or dismissed, can invite feelings like grief, loss, fear and shame, impact relationships, connection and intimacy, and be difficult to speak about and find caring support for
Navigating chronic pelvic pain conditions, fertility processes, experiences with medical trauma/gaslighting, health related anxiety, abortion and reproductive health, and the vast range of emotions and experiences that can be connected to these
Exploring notions of what ‘health’ means to you and (re)defining pleasure and sexual wellbeing in a body with pain/illness (and in relation/resistance to normative notions of health, sexuality, and pleasure)
Navigating ‘gendered’ illness/conditions as a gender diverse/expansive person and supporting advocacy in the face of discrimination in healthcare
Living and working as an artist, creative or someone who identifies with being, or has been labeled as, highly sensitive, in a culture that supports the idea that there is such a thing as being “too sensitive”
Working as a healthcare provider, navigating the pains of a medical system that creates challenges for you and the people you care for, while honoring the essential work of giving care