Culturally Sensitive Therapy

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.

Since most of my clients are BIPOC, being culturally sensitive and utilizing culturally sensitive thearpy is important in helping my clients feel safe, heard, and build trust with me. A large part of my practice is explaining the processes of therapy to my clients as it is their first time becoming vulnerable with a mental healthcare provide and trusting them.

As someone of mixed background and a member of the LGBTQIA community, providing affirming care is a core part of my professional and personal values. In addition to receiving my clinical training at Columbia University's School of Social Work, I also obtained an a Masters of Arts in Gender and Cultural Studies and have an extensive background providing clinical and other kinds of support to queer of BIPOC communities, including in non-profit and university settings.

Personal life experience and 6 years professional experience

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.

Each person on staff receives training in this area multiple times a year. Culture sensitivity is also part of our mission.

My counseling approach is warm, supportive, and encourages clients to connect with their inner child to unlearn the internalized oppressive messages that result from life, on a micro and macro level; with the belief that unlearning these messages can empower folx into moving forward and reclaiming their lives.

Completed multiple trainings in providing culturally responsive treatment across a variety of settings to include children, adults, adolescents of multiple ethnicities.

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 have studied at the Multicultural Family Institute, the Ackerman Institute for the family, and the Eikenberg Academy for Social Justice following the teachings of leaders in culturallly sensitive therapy such as Kenneth V. Hardy, Monica McGoldrick, Nydia Garcia Prieto, thandiwe Dee Watts Jones, and Resmaa Menakem. I continue to develop and deepen my ability to practice culturally sensitive therapy through ongoing practice, supervision and training.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.