Lisa Wenninger, LPCC

I'm a white cis woman (she/her pronouns) with a PhD - which means I carry a lot of privilege, and I work hard to be aware of it. I am committed to doing my work so that you don't have to carry the emotional labor in the relationship of therapy. Therapy definitely is a relationship, and I will center your experience, honoring who you are, and valuing the identities you hold without trying to change them - unless they're the outdated kind that no longer fit who you are today, and then we'll talk about it! :-) I have been practicing as a clinical counselor for about five years and I also hold a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision. My dissertation was on antiracist identity development in white women. I do my best to decolonize my counseling practice based on policies, communication, and trying to equalize the power dynamics. I am able to take some insurance, which is part of my equity stance, because therapy is expensive and should not be available only to the wealthy. I work from a psychodynamic perspective, which means we will focus on emotions, relationships, and the places where we get stuck, to increase insight, gain skills, and uncover the truth of ourselves to feel more stable, secure, and whole on the inside, no matter what chaos is happening around us. I work with individual adults only, specializing in complex PTSD stemming from childhood neglect or poor parenting; SA; adult children of alcoholics and codependent patterns; attachment traumas (relationship distress, feeling out of control or unloveable); plus overthinking and overcontrol tendencies. I have specific experience with grief and loss, especially pet loss. I have specialized training and experiencing providing psychotherapy to activists and advocates, and to other therapists. I have done long-term work with clients holding a full range of gender identities including trans, gender fluid, NB, questioning, and all stages of transition (note: mostly AFAB and FTM; if you are MTF I have less experience, but we could talk and you can see what you think). I welcome all of you including your romantic identities, whether ace, aro, poly, bi, queer, pan or any other flavor, and inclusive of kink and BDSM. I am able to offer support no matter whether your experience of the world is neurotypical or neurodivergent, including ADHD, alexithymia (difficulty accessing or identifying emotions), misophonia (emotional reactivity to specific sounds), and more. I am teletherapy only, for clients in California and Washington State. I offer a free 20-minute phone call as a first step to introduce myself and learn about what's going on with you, to see if this might be a fit. I know that finding a therapist can be really overwhelming. If you want to reach out, we can figure out together what might be the right steps for you and what you might need to feel better.