Licensed Master
of Social Work
As someone who is both non-binary and gay, I understand the unique pressures fellow LGBTQIA+ individuals endure in social, emotional, and occupational domains of functioning.With a lack of adequate social support, navigating sex, relationships, and intimacy as a queer individual can be much more challenging, especially while considering past traumas, internalized homophobia, and other impediments. Whether it is coming to terms with your newfound gender and/or sexual identity, coming out to your family, friends, or the workplace, or coping with dysphoria, I create a culture of comfort and empathy, where you are able to openly discuss your relationship with gender, sexuality, and relationships while being assured that you are validated and earnestly understood.
In my social work practice, I focused on the intersection of identity and barriers to quality mental health and medical care, housing, employment, etc. which led to collaboration with at-risk LGBTQIA+ youth and adults, chronically ill individuals, and survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). My therapeutic style is humanistic and integrative, where I utilize talk therapy to give clients an affirming environment to freely explore their thoughts and inner conflicts. Additionally, I utilize Gestalt techniques such as “the empty chair” and paradoxical change to encourage clients to apply thought and expression to the present and implore self-awareness as a means to self acceptance. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is a hallmark of my practice, as well techniques of logotherapy and those of Rational Emotive Therapy.
Ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality, but in simpler terms, it is the cohesive knowledge that every person holds about everything. Knowing my clients’ relationship to “being”, whatever that might mean to them, allows me to develop a comprehensive understanding of their self-concept and thus, allows for both rapport and a strong, collaborative therapeutic relationship to be built.
Languages:
- English
- Spanish
Offering:
- General Therapy
- Individual Therapy
- LGBTQIA+ affirmative therapy
- Relationship Therapy
- Sex Therapy
- Depression
- Anxiety
Population:
- Young Adults
- Adults
- Couples
- LGBTQIA+
Training:
- Motivational Interviewing
- Sex Therapy
- LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Care
- Trauma-informed care
- Gottman (Level 1)
- Intimate Partner Violence Advocacy
- Family Directed Structural Therapy
Education:
- Master of Social Work- Northern Kentucky University
- Bachelor of Social Work & Bachelors of Arts in Spanish- Northern Kentucky University
Session Fee: $145
Sav is under the sex therapy supervision of Emma Schmidt, Ph.D., LPCC-S, CST