Alyssa McLean

The collaborative and nurturing space created between therapist and client is one I hold as sacred and, honestly, pretty magical. It can feel really hard to do All The Things all on our own, and that feeling of aloneness can get overwhelming on a good day, much less in the tougher phases of life. As a therapist, I offer a safe, transparent place to land, where together we can help you work through the things that are feeling heavy or sticky, where you can feel more able to understand yourself and honor your intuition, where you can figure out how to move with a little more ease through the twists of life. Whether it’s relationships, life transitions, boundaries, communication, personal growth, identity, anxiety, depression, your relationship with your body, or just that intuitive knowing that you need some support to get to the next phase of the journey (or to be able to be more present in the current one), I offer one-on-one therapy that is nonjudgmental, interpersonal, and collaborative. And, if you’re someone who finds astrology, Tarot, humor, and/or nonreligious spirituality to be supportive to your healing work, I’ve got you! Now, a bit about me and my perspectives on this work! I was a therapist in Chicago for several years before moving to California in 2018. When I first landed on the west coast, I chose to shift my work into coaching, which I’ve been doing since 2019. And while I love that work and my coaching business, I felt pulled to reenter the therapy world! I’m excited to be in this work again after a hiatus. And also…I sometimes struggle with what it means to be a therapist. I’m a queer woman who strives every day to engage in the world within an abolitionist framework, and I find that parts of the therapy profession and how it can manifest don’t always align with that. I don’t believe that therapy is the only option…first, because it isn’t (there are so many healing modalities that help people), and also it has historically been (and is still currently, in many ways) used as a tool of the larger white supremacist, colonial, imperialistic, capitalist systems that we’re currently trapped under. And I find that often, therapy can hyper-individualize everything, and suddenly we’re having pretty understandable reactions to horrific systems or situations and asking ourselves why we feel the way we do…even being led to believe that there’s something wrong with us, clinically or diagnostically. But maybe the feelings you’re struggling with make sense…and maybe we can work together to both normalize them within the context of the world we live in, and also explore ways that you might access more ease and fulfillment in a system that doesn’t make that very simple to figure out. This work is a collective struggle, and there is nothing “wrong” with you. And also, I do believe that therapy still has the potential to help you explore the ways in which living doesn’t feel so alone, so tough, so disempowering. It’s not often easy or quick…but it’s possible. And that can be enough hope to get started.