Culturally Sensitive Therapy

I believe that understanding how sociocultural, systemic, and institutional forces influence the ways that you traverse this world. Examining such contexts can facilitate the harnessing of your internal wisdom as well as become more connected to your collective and ancestral experiences.

I am a queer, feminist therapist and coming from a systems background, believe that the environments and systems we are surviving within impact our sense of safety and our sense of self. I work hard to deconstruct and unpack the ways our shitty cultural norms negatively impact my clients and connect them back to an internalized sense of self-worth, self-esteem, self-validation, and safety.

Culture informs how we view and understand our values and others around us. It's important to integrate that into therapy, as well as for your therapist to respect and understand your perspective.

As a mixed-race and queer individual, I am very tuned in to the ways that folx are asked to mask, code-switch, and mold themselves into the overarching expectations of societal contexts. I actively invite folx to show up in their wholeness and authenticity throughout the course of our work together. This includes resistance, anger, depression, resilience, needs for rest--all of you. All of you is welcome here.

I use a culturally sensitive lens to allow clients to be the experts in their own lives, as coming from a place of non-judgement and understanding.

Personal life experience and 6 years professional experience

Identifying as BIPOC, AADPI, and/or Latine is a huge part of your life. We all wear our races on our faces. Understanding how your race, ethnicity, and culture effect your life is an inherent part of my role as your counselor. Together, we can explore what parts of your cultural identity feel like external expectations placed on you (like your parent's influences or stereotypes) and what parts create who you are as an individual. Going through my own cultural journey has taught me a lot!

My training as a counseling psychologist is steeped in a holistic view of humanity: strengths-based, developmental, contextual, multiculturally-sensitive with a focus on social justice. I have taught many courses on on CST, but more importantly, I continue to engage in a personal ongoing practice of cultural self-exploration, including awareness of the privilege I hold. CST means that we can explore all aspects of your identity and the ways they influence and contextualize your experiences.

Using Culturally Sensitive Therapy, I am dedicated to providing a therapeutic space that respects and honors your unique cultural background, values, and experiences. I understand that cultural factors significantly influence mental health, so I tailor my approach to align with your specific cultural context. By integrating cultural awareness into our sessions, I ensure that your beliefs, traditions, and identity are acknowledged and valued.

Alison is a native New Yorker and believes understanding a client’s background and belief system is paramount for optimal treatment as it relates to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or other important elements of culture and/or identity.

Social justice and advocacy are core pieces to a therapist's identity. They have to be able to navigate complex cultural issues that transcend race and cultural identity. These issues are often the source of a lot of the issues our clients are struggling, and a therapist must be able to identify the impact of culture and identity on the presenting issue.

As a bicultural/bilingual therapist, I am attuned to the profound impact of my clients‘ cultural background on their communication.

While not assuming what might feel relevant to you, I actively create space in conversations with clients to discuss how your identities (including cultural, racial, religious, gender, and sexual orientation) may connect with your experiences, worldview, strengths, or challenges. When people meet with me for therapy, I know their lives and experiences do not exist in a vacuum. Context matters, and diferent forms of oppression can all impact mental health.

I work from a multicultural orientation. I hold cultural humility, cultural comfort, and cultural opportunity as a baseline for all interventions. I will do my best to appreciate and uphold whichever aspects of yourself you choose to bring into the therapeutic space.

Sociocultural and identity factors (gender, race, sexuality, etc. ) shape how we experience the world and how the world interacts with us. My training emphasizes the importance of understanding how these factors impact our mental health.

I practice from a lens of cultural humility. This means that I take responsibility to self-reflect and increase my understanding of all aspects of my clients' identity. I center myself in a supportive role and never claim to be an expert in anyone's life and instead honor the customs that may already be established as natural resources to build upon.

I work with clients in a collaborative relationship to identify goals for therapy and treatment or growth plan. Together, we will identify what will be helpful, to explore how you relate to yourself (your thoughts, feelings, body, identity), the context within which you live, and how the heck to manage the societal structures we have to navigate. As a therapist I aim to practice with cultural humility, and will educate myself on topics important to you.

I believe strongly that our culture(s) play a huge role in our happiness as well as our dysfunction. I take social, cultural, family, and systems level factors into account when working with clients and believe that healing our relationships to our cultures is a major part of overall mental health.