My work is rooted in the belief that when we connect with and honor the deepest parts of ourselves, we are able to shift towards authentic approaches to our lives and relationships. In the space of our therapeutic relationship, it is my goal to offer a place where the totality of you can be seen and held, as is. It is my mission to be with and dignify you in this unfurling, helping you explore and anchor disowned places, and move towards liberation.
Lily specializes in…
- Licensure
- Marriage and Family Resident Therapist
- Clinical Supervisor: Alissa Goddard, MA, LMFT, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist
- Degrees
- Bachelor of Arts in Dance – Western Washington University
- Master of Arts in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy candidate – Portland State University
My Journey
I experienced early relationships as a covenant of self-abandonment. I come from a family that attempted to obscure substance abuse and interpersonal loss by adhering to cultural standards of respectability and desirability. So much of me – fatness, dissenting desires, complex feelings and needs- felt unacceptable within this ecosystem.
My interest in sex therapy is based in the belief that connection to our body and desire – and experiencing ourselves as worthy of desire – is a bedrock of our humanity. We live within systems that devalue all but a narrow range of identities and expressions. My approach to this work is interwoven with a call to dismantle oppressive paradigms of what is desirable, and who is allowed to desire. I believe it is outside of these rules that we find true and fulfilling connection.
My clinical approach is led by a strong curiosity about how you experience yourself and your relationships. I gravitate towards experiential models that consider systemic impact, such as Narrative and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). In my experience, EFT helps us access our most crucial needs in relationships. Both EFT and Narrative Therapy provide tools for exploring and reframing the stories of pain and lack that can come up around these needs, creating space for something new and sustaining.
I am a white, queer, able-bodied, cis-ish gendered counselor. I consider divesting from dominant power systems key to my practice, as well as my own healing work. Before starting graduate school to study Relational and Family Counseling I held many jobs as a dancer, artist, and service industry hotshot (bartender). In my free time I like to garden, putter around the house, be in nature, be with friends, watch Survivor, and make quilts very slowly – one block at a time.
