Brianda Pagán Andino

Approaches and areas of focus: I work primarily with BIPOC/people of color who have experienced sexual violence, childhood abuse, and intergenerational trauma. My areas of focus include traumatic stress (including C-PTSD), dynamics of race and culture, parenting, relationships, sex and sexuality, and grief. I enjoy work that fosters reconnection with the body, pleasure, joy, the ancestral, environment and our unique gifts and contributions in the world. My approaches are relational and strengths-based. A lot of my experience has been about witnessing and holding space around our stories, as well as building practices that facilitate shifts in our patterns and narratives. I am increasingly moving toward therapeutic work that centers somatics and the knowing and wounds carried in our bodies as well as how to support healing around sex and sexuality. Also foundational to my approach is critical examination of the ways that colonial and oppressive systems and over-culture land in our bodies and our psyches. I draw from parts work (including Internal Family Systems), EMDR, somatics, Compassionate Bereavement Care, Body Trust, and honor the works and wisdom of many teachers within and beyond fields of social work and psychology who I have learned from - including Dr. Shelly Harrell, Natalie Y. Gutiérrez (LMFT), Iya Ìfé Michelle (LCSW, CHLC), Dr. Shawna Murray Browne, Amy Hyun Swart (LMFT, RYT), and Dr. Sophia Aguirre. Currently I am training in: Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy (Embody Lab) and Sex and Relational Life Therapy (Relational Life Institute). Professional and personal background: My graduate education was completed with the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work and my undergraduate degree with the University of Washington Department of Geography in Seattle. Prior to becoming a therapist, my professional experience included school-based work with refugee families, shelter-based work with women and children fleeing high lethality-risk domestic abuse, hospital-based work with children who have experienced sexual violence and physical abuse, and public policy work related to housing, homelessness, and community spaces. On a personal level, I identify as a mixed race cisgender woman. I grew-up in river and farm country in the pacific northwest (lands of the Yakama, Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Snoqualmie, Muckleshoot, Duwamish). My patrilineal roots are Afro-Boricua of northern urban coastal Puerto Rico (Bayamón, Santurce, Trujillo Alto) and my matrilineal are of white European settler-colonial patterns across the midwest and northwestern interior (Spokane, South Dakota). There is a lot about life that energizes me: clay, rivers, music, dancing, basketball, birds, big ideas, spiritual practice, growing and cooking ancestral foods. Much of my time outside of this work is devoted to running around with my kids and with chosen family. Please get in touch with any questions or schedule an initial consultation call if you feel that I could be a good fit for you.