APPROACH
Hey, I’m Les. I use they/them pronouns. I grew up in southern Ohio and moved to Chicago for school, where I resided for nine years, before moving to the Portland area in the summer of 2022.
Approach-wise I’m pretty eclectic. I was trained in psychodynamic theory which I use alongside person-centered theory and relational-cultural frameworks to focus on how intersecting parts of our identities belong in the therapeutic space. I incorporate a lot of narrative therapy and internal family systems into my work. I believe we can have the tendency to hold onto a lot from early attachment figures and traumatic experiences that can often become internalized by default and I believe it's important to externalize what these experiences mean to us and create new ways of understanding that fit within our current lived experience.
EDUCATION // EXPERIENCE
I am a registered LPC Associate in the state of Oregon and I am supervised by Quinn Rivenburgh MAAT, LPC, ATR-BC, ATCS. I received my bachelor's degrees in Philosophy and Political Science from DePaul University and my master’s in Counseling Psychology from Northwestern University.
I completed my clinical internship at The Chicago Center for Cognitive Wellness and, upon moving to Portland, worked in community mental health and group practice settings. My clinical work experience has included working with neurodivergence, complex trauma, suicidality, and providing gender-affirming care as well as working with transitional-age youth in the community and adults in an outpatient setting. In addition to my clinical work, I have worked for several years in social justice advocacy settings including harm reduction in the context of substance use, working to find alternatives to policing, and direct intervention and crisis de-escalation strategies in the context of state-sanctioned violence and dearresting.
PERSONAL
I am a white transmasc nonbinary person and very much enjoy working with individuals processing gender and sexuality. In my free time, I enjoy martial arts, modding video games, SFX makeup, over-spicing Slavic food, and ghost hunting. I am a proud father of my three cat children: Harvey Milk, Bayard Rustin, and Marsha P. Johnson.
