EXISTENTIAL AND EXPERIENTIAL THERAPY FOR QUEER AND NEURODIVERGENT BEINGS

PHILOSOPHY

Observing your inner and outer world through play, art, nature and ecology

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PERSPECTIVE

I use a polyvagal informed, existential and relational approach to help you understand how your emotions and nervous system interact. We map out your internal system, what is working and isn't working, and what feels missing without judging or banishing parts of yourself that need to be heard and served a function in the past. By assessing our values and what change you want to see, we can develop a plan to experiment with new ways of being and dreaming up the life you want to live.

PRACTICE

I am a queer, neurodivergent affirming therapist specializing in individuals ranging from youth to adulthood who may be dealing with life transitions, ADHD, depression, complex family dynamics and grief. I see clients virtually or in-person nature based therapy at local spots in the Milwaukee area. I invite you to reach out to discuss what you are looking for in a therapist and what small next steps will bring you closer to your goals.

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Life can be incredibly hard, painful, and overwhelming to say the least. My approach to life is to honor the pain that comes with it and how we've learned to survive in a world that can be destructive and shattering. How can we find meaning in suffering to maintain existence the best we can? By looking at the human condition, our sense of self, life-affirming practices and relationships, we can uncover a path to a fulfilling life that makes sense for you.

“Human beings are magical. Bios and Logos. Words made flesh, muscle and bone animated by hope and desire, belief materialized in deeds, deeds which crystallize our actualities.”

- Sylvia Wynter

I feel like my purpose on this earth is to be with and hold people's stories, not turning away from the heartbreak, suffering, darkness, and endings we must endure as humans. In my practice I like to use humor, books, art, symbolic imagery, metaphor, pop culture and creative practices that reflect what it means to be human while shedding levity on the mystical nature and heaviness of life. That being said, I don't downplay how hard life is and what you had to go through to get here, to survive in states of hopelessness and floating potentialities that never came to be.

My philosophy is something sometimes works. How can we experience life through observation, experimentation and play without attributing the binary of success or failure to every action or outcome. I use this frame work for my own life and to help others detach from perfectionistic thinking and the shame shadow following you around like a creepy stalker ensuring you are stuck living one way for the rest of your life. But you are not a soulless automaton, whatever version of yourself you are or were does not dictate your future. Integrating your shadow through creativity and imagination will show you the way to the life you were meant to inhabit.

You may ask yourself well, how did I get here?

Closing the gap between your current and ideal reality—

Together we can move toward a reality that holds the tension between change and acceptance, distress and boredom, purpose and listlessness. In the act of being-with and looking directly at what haunts us — sometimes a void of emptiness, painful realities, the mystery of the unknown, or a longing for belonging — we can find meaning in what feels meaningless and maintain an existence that glimmers with connection, fascination and purpose.

If you too find yourself waking up in the midst of a Talking Heads song or in the attic of Lydia Dietz, grab your tele-communicative device and call CORRIE, the semi-regular variable star, the ‘biologos-therapist’ who will take your existential dread, swirl it around, and turn into a new found lease on life.

Have you been floating through space in suspended animation? Your body has mastered the skill of dampening your biological needs and deepest desires to survive in a hellscape that is dehumanizing and horrifying. Time is moving, yet you feel static, frozen by pressures to keep up with the stream of life flowing without you. Are you tired of spending time and energy on things you don’t care about and not doing the things you say you want to do?

Are you having difficult adjusting, wishing you were the oh so elusive “well-adjusted” person? Well, well-adjusted to what….the conglomerate corruption of big everything (business, data, tech)? It's not you, you aren't the problem (well sometimes you are) but in this instance it's greed, surveillance and control bleeding you dry so you have nothing left to give to your own existence. Sometimes the suggested new operating system does not align with your self-organizing system. Press decline on the automated software update, find your own meaning of existence and come back to life you actually want to live.

I primarily work with queer, neurodivergent individuals ranging from youth to adulthood who may be dealing with life transitions, ADHD, depression, complex family dynamics and grief. 

MODALITIES

Logotherapy - Finding meaning through creation, experiences and attitudes to move through inevitable suffering

Internal Family Systems - Addressing the various parts that make up the self, taking on different roles and burdens with the aim to protect ourselves

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - Learning to be psychologically flexible and struggle less through mindful and values based living

Expressive Arts Therapy- Reflecting through making in various form of expression such as writing, drawing, painting, comics, collaging, molding, movement

Ecotherapy - Immersing self in nature based activities such as mindful walking, being with and taking care of plants and animals, crafts, sensory observation and attention

Polyvagal Theory - Noticing and shifting nervous system states to serve the human need for safety and connection

Focusing- Accessing a felt sense in the body by listening to unclear emotions or thoughts allowing for a bodily shift and change in mindset

My Background

  • Education - MS in Community Psychology from Alverno College

    Licensed Professional Counselor, LPC, Wisconsin

    License Number: 11583-125

    • Polyvagal certificate course, Polyvagal Institute (2024)

    • Introduction to Ecotherapy course, Earthbody Institute (2023)

    • Peoples Medicine School, Rootwork Herbals (2022)

    • Psychedelic Liberation Training, The Ancestor Project (2021)

    • Trauma-Informed Grief Support, Shauna Janz (2023)

    • Loving Justice: Trauma Informed Conflict Skills, Kai Cheng Thom (2022)

    • When conversation turns to suicide, Wildflower Alliance (2021)

    • Undoing Racism™/Community Organizing Workshop, The People's Institute (2017)

  • Bulimia Harm reduction 101, Nalgona Positivity Pride (2025)

    Personality Disorders Treatment, Gregory Lestor (2025)

    EMDR & Parts Work for Treating Complex Trauma, Arielle Schwartz (2024)

    Decolonizing Trauma Work: From the Individual to the Systemic, Cassandra Walker (2023)

    Blending ACT & ERP: Values-based Exposures for Everyday Therapy, Grace Dickman (2023)

    LGBTQIA+ and Neurodivergent Affirming approaches to Food and Body, RDs for Neurodiversity (2023)

    And many many more!

  • As a child I would follow and name the pigeons around the basketball court at recess. Imagining the pattern of my footsteps, a darting nonsensical stagger, a meandering full of false starts, pauses, unfinished loops, and reversals. From a distance, this moving image may look chaotic, lonely, and confusing, but these movements were the only way I knew how to be. Through trial and error and relentlessly flailing, I was observing what really is, drawn to what people overlook, witnessing the pain of existence. Later in life, I learned the jerkiness of the head bobbing functions as a pause, to obtain visual clarity so their body can catch up. This is how I see myself and my client's -- the need to pause to gain clarity because our mind is moving at a rate faster than our body's know what to do with, creating a blurred reality we are constantly trying to orient to and move through without losing our way or falling behind.

    I have tried a lot of things. I've worked in retail, service, childcare, nonprofits residential care, schools and clinics. I've quit many jobs, been fired for being late, given second chances, and asked to come back. I've had the privilege to take risks, try things that don't work out, and struggle endlessly. I believe my gift to the world is to share my self-inflicted struggle and what I've learned along the way. The misery of trying to “figure life out”through sometimes horrible mistakes has helped me know myself better, what I wish I knew earlier and what isn't for me. I am a compassionate contrarian (cancer/leo cusp), feel and love deeply, know my convictions (which always contain a spattering of self-doubt) with a big, yet quiet personality. I am constantly investigating, learning, collecting and planning, always with a list in hand. I love knowing humans, learning their history in all its forms (oral, objects, writing, artifacts, ephemera) and listening for what hasn't been said.

Hello, it’s me, Corrie

More Issues/ Identities

Neurodivergence/Adhd

LGBTQIA2S+

Grief

Depression

Thoughts of death and dying

Trauma related to religion, psychiatric care, and money

Children and teens

Parenting / Child development

Creatives / Wayward lives

Social anxiety

Oppression and privilege

Family conflict

Personality and interpersonal issues

LOGISTICS

  • I charge $130 per 55 minute session or $115 per 45 minute session with the option of sliding scale available.

  • I currently accept BCBS, Anthem, Careleon, United Health Care, UMR and Aetna

  • I use the green bottle sliding scale guide developed by Alexis J. Cunningfolk referenced here on their website. The green bottle method helps people understand their financial privilege and make an informed decision on what to pay for services.

    My sliding scale rates are the following:

    Full bottle: $130/55 minute session or $115/45 minute session

    Half full bottle: $90/55 minute session or $75/45 minute session

    Almost empty bottle: $60/55 minute session or $45/45 minute session

Are you interested in working together? Tell me what brought you here, what haunts you, and where you want to go in the form over there — And I’ll send you an electronic message to schedule a free 15 minute consultation.

Enter Here
“Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I—I hardly know, sir, just at present— at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
— Alice, by way of Lewis Carroll