Natalie, a blonde-haired small fat white person, smiles in the sunlight while wearing a mulitcolored top with abstract shapes.

Hi!

My name is Natalie (she/they) and I am a licensed marriage and family therapist in California. I am a white, fat-identified neurodivergent queer person who is passionate about exploring the impact of institutional harm on one’s sense of safety and wellbeing and partnering with individuals to explore healing and liberation.

I am passionate about working with LGBTQ+ people, those who have experienced adoption, fat-identified people, and people who have experienced trauma, including religious trauma and harm caused by purity culture. Through exploring my own journey through the harm of patriarchy, capitalism, and anti-fat bias I have developed a passion for exploring the impact of oppression on mental health, identity, and well-being, and I love working with individuals and families to find empowerment amidst ongoing systemic oppression using a Liberation Psychology lens.

Therapy cannot be meaningful without first establishing a safe therapeutic relationship. This is my first and most important goal--having the therapy space be safe, affirming, authentic, trusting, and welcoming. We together form the collective space of two people, client and therapist, forming a safe and empowered space. I also understand that it is critical to pursue ongoing understanding of institutional harm, systemic oppression, and liberation personally and at a community and societal level to pursue liberation practices within the therapy room, whether through corrective experiences, exploring ways to reduce institutional harm, or through exploring supportive community and identity. 

Personal Values in Practice

  • Mental health and body liberation is rooted in activism that has been and continues to be lead by systemically marginalized folks (ex: fat, disabled, QTPOC) who are often looked over despite their meaningful work. As someone who has significant areas of privilege as a white, not currently disabled, straight-passing, educated small fat person I am committed to the ongoing undoing of patriarchy, white supremacy culture, racism, capitalism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-fatness in my own life and holding myself accountable to ways I can partake in dismantling these oppressive systems from which I have benefitted. This includes the ongoing commitment to anti-carceral approaches to mental healthcare, harm-reduction approaches, and pursuing approaches to mental healthcare that pursue liberation for oppressed folks rather than the traditional therapy approaches that can cause harm.

  • Covid praxis: I am utilizing. multilayered approach including masking with a KN95 of higher in all public indoor spaces and crowded outdoor spaces, avoiding non-essential outings, if I spend time with folks indoors it is only in very small groups with people who share similar praxis as I do and where we test before. I am up to date on all available vaccinations. In my office, I am masked and ask that the folks I see in office are as well, and I utilize HEPA filtration.

Experience

I have 7 years of experience as a therapist, where I have worked with folks who are adopted and their families, facilitated parent support groups for adoptive parents, worked with folks in the LGBTQ+ community including youth and adults, and folks with various trauma histories. I have spent years working with youth and their families, as well as individual adults where we explore the impact of their lived experiences on their day to day experience.

 LMFT #128940 

Certified Clinical Trauma Professional #600850

White round badge that reads "Inclusive therapist: Celebrating all identities and bodies." There is also a beighe circle, pink rectangle, and orange half circle in the middle arranged in an abstract way.
Dark teal round badge that reads" this practice is inclusive and welcoming to all: member of therapyden." There is an orange hanging light in the background.

“Despite the condition of the soil, I will choose to bloom.”

— Tonya Ingram

Care rooted in transparency, community, and anti-oppression

 

Transparency

I believe that maintaining transparency about each part of the therapeutic process, from fees to office policies, reduces the often-found power dynamics in therapy and creates a safe and trusting healing environment from which to grow.  I believe in a “calling on” culture (Sonya Renee Taylor) where we call on one another to strive for justice, equity, accountability, and inclusivity.

 

Healing in Community

Part of the healing process includes finding a safe and supportive community, starting within the therapy space and expanding outward. This includes the relationship of An Affirming Space as a part of the community as a helpful member pursuing healing practices including support of local issues, mutual aid, and engagement in changing oppressive systems for the benefit of the community.

 

Anti Oppression

Therapy has often been an oppressive space rooted in classism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Undoing this as a practice personally and in community is a key value of mine and an ongoing process that I take very seriously. My highest aim is to help uncover the truest, realest, most vibrant person I am working with that has been harmed by generations of ongoing oppression. It is critically important to me to center your experience and explore ways to help you meet your

Specialties

Trauma

PTSD and CPTSD/developmental trauma, mind-body connection, EMDR, attachment trauma, religious trauma and harm caused by purity culture, Polyvagal Theory.

Identity

LGBTQ+, fat-identified folx, adoptees, transracial adoptees, neurodiversity affirming.

Finding your place

Identity-focused work considering places of privilege and oppression, lived experiences, and what would be supportive in creating a meaningful life