Hi, my name is Donna.  I love to hike in my spare time, and one of my goals is to hike some of the Appalachian Trail before my fiftieth birthday.  I love to be outside in the sunshine playing with my young daughter on summer days.  That wasn’t always the case…as a teen I spent many days depressed, pressured by family rules to “conform” and to fit into a mold that wasn’t me.  I had low self worth but in high school I found music and it became my life raft.  Well, a Goth life raft if you will.

I am a huge fan of 70’s & 80’s goth music, one of my favorite bands is Bauhaus for its creepy notes and the member’s gloomy, shocking appearance. Even though you won’t catch me in any graveyards these days, I still admire the courage it took to for the post punk musicians to be authentically themselves. Goth music showed me that I could be myself, whatever that was and that I wasn’t alone, that I could be courageous and different.

I love working with people who find themselves trapped by the pressures and expectations from society- how they “should” be or act or talk. The pressures from religion, family rules and the underlying ableist, racist, sexist systems of our society.  After my own experiences with feeling suffocated by the religious and gender rules placed upon me, I realized that I had to live my life for me.  At 15 I came out as a bisexual person. As an adult I have learned ways to work with the gifts and the challenges that being Neurodivergent brings, to set boundaries and hold them. My training as a therapist has given me the tools to help others unmask and find joy in their divergence.

Together we can explore beliefs that keep you feeling stressed, stuck and then we take real action to make lasting changes to uncover the wonderful you underneath.

Schedule a phone call today!

EDUCATION

• Bachelors of Social Work , Texas State University

• Masters of Social Work, The University of Texas- Austin

RECENT TRAININGS

• Pathological Demand Avoidance Certification (PDA) May 2021

• Comprehensive and Proactive Solutions (CPS) May 2021

• MIGDAS-2 Training April 2021

• Adding a Neurodiversity Lens to Your Practice Workshop June 2021

• Understanding the Basics of Neurodivergence and the Neurodiversity Movement April 2023

• Neurodiversity Masterclass April 2023