Welcome

Welcome.

Take a deep breath. It is your time to focus on you. Your time to unpack, understand, and let go of whatever is getting in your way. It is your time to become even more of the person who you want to be, who you know you can be. And I want to help you do just that.

I help clients identify their concerns and blocks, establish boundaries based in integrity, respect and self-care, increase personal understanding and self-empowerment, and then make the changes necessary to be more of the person who they want to be. I have 29+ years experience as a cutting-edge, skilled, socially conscious counselor, consultant, coach and educator.

I firmly believe that the personal is the professional is the political.

I adhere to a fundamental consciousness that our personal, inter-personal and community health, wellness and well-being is nurtured by human connection that is grounded in justice and equity; and generationally harmed by the existing layers of cultural and systematic oppression and trauma.

I try to hold this framework as the backdrop to the work that I do and the life that I live. I am an Irish, German and Roma Gypsy cisgender woman, a lesbian from way back, a survivor, feminist, a parent by creative means, a social justice community organizer, and I hail from a small conservative farming community in Minnesota. These identities, with all of their colliding lessons, inform my motivation and dedication to the services I provide and the communities that I choose to serve.   

I welcome people who feel outside of mainstream counseling or coaching settings because they have a socially conscious sensibility, are LGBTQ+, people of color, feminists, engage in alternative sexual lifestyles, family or relationship configurations, distrust mental health professionals or authority figures, and/or engage in community organizing, volunteering, or policy-making that addresses social injustices. Additionally, I offer reduced training rates to non-profits and allow for a designated number of reduced fee slots in my caseload.

Whether I am providing coaching, counseling, professional consultation, or presenting workshops, I offer a nonjudgmental, professional and down-to-earth style that is layered with warmth, respect, out-of-the-box creativity, and compassion; all within the framework of decades of training and direct service experience.

Being self-employed provides me the opportunity to actively intertwine three of my passions:

• The privilege to work directly with people who want to make personal or professional changes using coaching or counseling.
• To engage with many different people by offering workshops and trainings and professional consultation on such topics as professional ethics around burn out, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue; white professionals working with people of color; professional and personal self-care for mental health, social service, medical and education professionals; radical self-care, healing justice and oppression fatigue for social justice activists and community organizers; and fostering healthy LGBQA2S+ relationships.
  
• To actively volunteer in my communities. For example, I am the chair of the MN LGBTQ+ Therapists Network, past chair of the MN Coalition of Sexual Assault Services, and past Board Member of MN Women in Psychology. 

As you look through my website, note the resources section that includes recommended readings (PDF), Minnesota and national organizations (PDF), and other information related to coaching, self-growth and self-care, trauma, white privilege and racial equity, relationships, sexuality, LGBTQ+, burn-out, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue. These are topics that I routinely address in the direct service and educational services that I provide.

If any of my services are of interest to you, please contact me to arrange a complimentary 30-minute phone consultation.

Take good care,
Irene