About me

Hi! I’m Erika (they/them).

I’m a mover and dancer by birth, therapist by training, and a 90s teenybopper at heart. The following Venn Diagram describes my interests pretty well:

 

Social Location

I am a white, queer, genderqueer, neurodivergent individual, and am not living with a physical disability at this time. Throughout my life, I have benefitted from family financial privilege, a college education, and white body privilege. All these elements have shaped my experience of various mental health struggles and ADHD.

Picture of Erika, white genderfluid person with brown short hair, smiling, wearing a brown and white spotted and striped bandana, maroon button up shirt, and light brown sweater.

More About Me:

I feel most excited about life when I’m doing something creative and intentional with people (line dancing, singing, making collages) and most aligned with my purpose when I’m helping adults to play/move/create as part of their healing/recovery.

I’m a bit tender-hearted and an easy crier at church hymns or a protest.

I like my media with some kind of paranormal/fantasy element involved (otherwise I’ll usually lose interest).

A bit more about me and ADHD…

Even though ADHD has been affecting me since I was a kid, it was just five years ago that I officially talked about it with my therapist as a possibility. Realizing that I have ADHD has been a huge relief because it helped me to look for the exact type of support that I need. It also gave me a detailed and straightforward answer to my constant question, “What’s wrong with me?” The answer is - nothing at all! My brain just works in a certain way and needs certain things to be happy. (And it gets exhausted and sad and self-critical when it doesn’t have those things).

On top of the logistical chaos of ADHD, I realized I was also carrying a lot of shame and self-doubt about how my symptoms have affected my life and relationships. As I learned more about the neuroscience behind ADHD and how to tend to shame when it comes up, I started to feel proud that my brain is this way.

Even on the days when I don’t feel proud, I still think of ADHD as just one of many ways that a human brain could work. I want to support other ADHDers because I think the world really could benefit from our kind of brains right now!

My approach is

  • body-based,

  • creative,

  • playful,

  • trauma-informed,

  • trans-affirming,

  • and is centered in the Internal Family Systems model of therapy.

I am invested in an anti-oppressive framework for therapy and seek to embrace antidotes to the white supremacy culture that we are steeped in every day. Trans-affirming care is care that sees white supremacy and transphobia as intricately linked.

In therapy, my belief system might show up as: naming white supremacy and other forms of oppression and their influence on our mind/body/spirit, welcoming gray areas and contradictions instead of either/or thinking, or encouraging you (and us) to go towards conflict instead of avoiding it. And behind the scenes, continuing to do my own work via meaningful connections that help me get uncomfortable and grow.

I use dance/movement therapy because it helps clients:

  • get out of their heads and into a sensory way of knowing

  • explore and work with hyperactivity and emotional dysregulation

  • move through feelings and experiences that don’t have words

  • experience the joy and focus of creative flow

I am drawn to Internal Family Systems as a mode of therapy because it is both creative and straightforward.

You may have heard about that sweet spot between structure and freedom. The right balance leads to interesting art, and in my opinion the best kind of therapy space.

We have this in IFS - there is a set of guidelines and a general map that we follow so that we don’t get too lost in the weeds, but also space to improvise and be spontaneous.

  • 2008: B.S. Social & Cultural History, Carnegie Mellon University

  • 2013: M.A. Creative Arts Therapy (specialization in Dance/Movement Therapy), Drexel University, 2013

  • 2017: Board Certification in Dance/Movement Therapy

  • 2017-present: Adjunct Faculty at Drexel University in Dance/Movement Therapy graduate program

  • 2018: Licensed Professional Counselor, Pennsylvania

  • 2020: Internal Family Systems, Level 1

  • 2021: Internal Family Systems, Level 2 

  • 2021: Completion of Widener University Year-Long Training Program: Affirmative Therapy for Transgender Communities

  • 2013 - present: Clinical Work in Philadelphia

    • The Center for Autism

    • Wedge Recovery Centers - Germantown Community Integrated Recovery Center

    • Greater Philadelphia Health Action

Schedule an initial consultation today!