(she/they)
New to Grow
Welcome to the Studio in Situ | a creative space made anywhere. I'm EC an Art Therapist (MAAT & MFA), Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) and Certified DV Counselor by way of Chicago, IL & Kansas City, MO. Prior to achieving ABC soup status I identified as an artist, designer and communiity activator. My work exists at the intersection of radical self-expression, relational aesthetics, and manufactured systems. For more than a decade, I have worked with individuals navigating the human condition in the context of a sublime horror we know as the American dream. I work especially well with creativly curious, intellectually restless, entrepreneurs, and those who have felt alienated by social roles, institutions, or purely medicalized approaches to mental health. Many of my clients are perceptive, skilled and capable, yet feel fragmented, overextended, creatively blocked, or disconnected from achieving self-actualization. My approach is collaborative, experiential, and structurally aware. I believe psychological health cannot be separated from holistic wellness, environment, labor, relationships, embodiment, culture, or material conditions. Together we examine not only symptoms, but the broader natural & constructed ecosystems we inhabit. We investigate mobility through social and emotional "life worlds", the narratives one has inherited, our survival strategies, what we find valuable, beautiful and how we make meaning with a life's worth of raw material. Alongside clinical practice, I have developed community-based art and advocacy projects with justice system-impacted individuals, survivors of violence, as well as alternative labor communities. Across all of this work runs a shared question: how do human beings maintain dignity, imagination, agency, community and connection under difficult conditions?
Rather than reducing people to diagnoses, productivity metrics, or prefab identities, I aim to help clients cultivate greater authorship, emotional honesty, creative flexibility, and practical transformation. Therapy with me is not about becoming a perfectly adjusted product of the over-culture. It is about building a life, language, and environment that more fully reflects ones since of purpose, reality, values, needs, and humanity. Our first session is both practical and exploratory. We begin with a traditional biopsychosocial assessment, which helps establish clinical context and creates documentation necessary for treatment, insurance, accommodations, or continuity of care. I view diagnosis as a tool rather than an identity: a form of shorthand that may help us navigate systems, but not the totality of who you are. From there, the session becomes more collaborative and relational. I want to understand not only what hurts, but the larger environment surrounding your experience: your relationships, labor, routines, creative instincts, stressors, survival strategies, values, and the pressures shaping your daily life. My style is active, engaged, and adaptive. Depending on your needs, our work may include expressive arts therapy, somatic awareness, symbolism, storytelling, environmental redesign, systems-building, or experiential exercises alongside traditional talk therapy. Some clients need structure and psychoeducation; others need space for grief, experimentation, catharsis, or reinvention. Often therapy becomes a combination of all of these. I am less interested in forcing clients into fixed narratives than in helping them develop a language that feels emotionally honest and usable. Together we begin identifying what patterns no longer serve you, what forms of life or relationship you may be outgrowing, and what possibilities are attempting to emerge. Our first sessions are ultimately about establishing trust, orientation, and momentum. The goal is to build a therapeutic process that feels ethical, sustainable, embodied, and capable of supporting free choice and meaningful change.
My greatest strength is helping clients transform insight into process & practice. I combine deep emotional attunement with creativity, systems-thinking, practical problem-solving, and interdisciplinary approaches to healing and meaning-making. I work particularly well with people who feel unseen within traditional mental health frameworks — especially individuals who have adapted to instability through over-functioning, intellectualization, hyper-independence, perfectionism, or constant performance. Rather than approaching distress in isolation, I look at the interplay between psyche, environment, embodiment, labor, aesthetics, relationships, and culture. My work draws from psychotherapy, trauma theory, expressive arts therapy, performance art, design strategy, philosophy, social practice, critical theory, and participatory community work. I often help clients externalize difficult experiences through image-making, metaphor, ritual, narrative, spatial intervention, embodied experimentation, and creative process. I also utilize an approach I call Studio In Situ, which treats ones physical environment as a parallel process to mental health. Together we may redesign routines, workflows, domestic spaces, sensory environments, creative systems, or relational structures so daily life more actively supports your values, goals, nervous system, and desired ways of being. Above all, I help clients move beyond survival and symptom management toward greater agency, post-traumatic growth, meaningful work, relational clarity, and a more intentional relationship with themselves and the worlds they inhabit.
I work well with the creatively curious, entrepreneurs, the intellectually restless, and those moving through life transitions. Perceptive clients often feel trapped by systems rewarding over-functioning while eroding meaning, process, innovation, and autonomy. Together, we explore identity as something shaped by environment, labor, survival strategies, and culture. Moving from burnout toward self-authorship, I offer a structurally aware space to navigate the "over-culture," trauma, and creative ambition without reducing you to productivity metrics, diagnoses, or canned roles. Relationship Structures & Intimacy I am interested in how we co-create knowledge, build partnerships, and foster intimacy under conditions producing alienation, or the performative personas we must construct to meet someone else's bottom line. My practice welcomes those exploring traditional and non-traditional relationship structures, as well as traditional and non-traditional career trajectories or economies. I support clients navigating chaotic histories, attachment wounds, relational ambiguity, and evolving intimacy. Rather than prescribing a singular framework, we identify dynamics that feel ethical, sustainable, embodied, and emotionally honest. Therapy Goals & Concerns Beyond Talk Therapy: Moving from theory to practice, we utilize making, spatial intervention, cartography, and experiential processes, allowing understanding to emerge through action rather than conversation alone. Post-Traumatic Growth: We meaningfully externalize, metabolize, and integrate difficult experiences to foster resilience, creative transformation, and a deeper relationship to your survival. Designing Meaningful Work: We align your labor and creativity with broader meaning. We believe health and wealth are not mutually exclusive; in a healthy system, process and product hold equal weight. Life Choreography (Studio In Situ): Because environments affect psychological states, we redesign domestic spaces, routines, workflows, and material systems as an integral therapeutic process. The Ultimate Outcome: Through a series of art experiments and purpose-driven projects, you will construct a tangible body of work that defines your new reality, innate strengths, and authentic self.
I identify as
Feminist
My approach to feminist therapy is rooted in systemic thinking and intersectional feminism. As an LGBTQ+ allied and sex worker aware practitioner, I support clients by holding space for multiple, simultaneous truths. In practice, we integrate critical theory to actively deconstruct rigid gender roles and dominant societal narratives, empowering you to navigate complex systemic pressures while reclaiming your self-authored identity.
Couples Counseling
In my relationship work, I utilize experiential and art-based directives to help partners actively practice new skills and build deep insight around communication and needs. I support both traditional and non-traditional relationship structures, explicitly welcoming those exploring polyamory, relationship anarchy, ethical kink, and BDSM. Whether we are navigating communication, trauma, sexuality, or intimacy, we work together to intentionally design a dynamic that honors your authentic relational framework.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Utilizing, symbolic, visual language and narrative therapy, I help you identify and map your internal system of parts. Alongside discussion, we use experiential tools like expressive infographic making, constellation charting, and self-portraiture to explore your internal landscape. By facilitating a dialogue between these parts, we work toward integrating your whole, authentic self while intentionally releasing the pieces and protective mechanisms that no longer serve you.
Positive Psychology
My approach focuses on folks in life transitions and overachievers who already possess profound skills and insight, but need support identifying their purpose and utilizing their strengths for the best possible outcomes. I collaborate with entrepreneurs and creatives to align their career, education, or exploration trajectories with work that serves both themselves and the world. Acknowledging the realities of problematic capitalist and professional systems, I view meaningful work as vital medicine for cultivating authentic quality of life and longevity.
Experiential Therapy
This approach encompasses art therapy, diverse expressive therapies, and mind-body focused somatic work. When it comes to the mediums we can explore together, the world is your oyster. Rather than relying solely on traditional talk therapy, advice, or passive discussion, we actively build new realities, uncover deeper insight, and generate tangible outcomes through the transformative experience of doing and creating. My proprietary model, Studio In Situ, translates to a "studio for every situation." In this practice, we actively attend to your physical environments—bringing your physical space, life systems, work systems, and home systems into a deliberate choreography and stage. By intentionally designing the spaces and systems you inhabit daily, we construct the foundation for your most efficacious, productive, rewarding, and generative life.