My Approach to Helping
Mo has a rich background in diversity and inclusion, social justice education, and trauma-informed care. With over 10 years of experience in these areas, Monique brings an intersectional lens to her work, focusing on providing clinical work, speaking, teaching, and supervising through the framework of equity and understanding. A queer, Black woman herself, Monique brings a depth of understanding and insight to her practice, providing competent work in intersectionality and addressing cultural and racial identity exploration with empathy and expertise.
Having navigated complex situations and lived through significant loss and grief, Monique brings a unique perspective to her practice. She firmly believes in finding joy amidst life's challenges and never forgetting the importance of laughter. Her vibrant personality, often said to be the equivalent of glitter, shines through in her therapeutic approach, making sessions collaborative, inviting and approachable.
From lecturing and speaking to MFT students on gender and sexuality, to providing care to low-income, neurodivergent, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ communities, to running a group for LGBTQIA+ mental health workers, Monique has always sought to bring her human-ness, personality, and clinical expertise into the room with her. As someone who deeply values working with adolescents, Monique has extensive experience in supporting LGBTQIA+ youth, both in academic and therapeutic settings. Across all ages and populations, she is particularly adept at addressing issues related to depression, anxiety, and trauma, using a humanistic and client-centered approach to meet individuals where they are at.
Monique's sessions are characterized by warmth, empathy, and a deep commitment to helping clients navigate their journeys towards healing and growth. Across all settings, Monique's goal is to create a safe and inclusive space where everyone feels valued and understood.
More Info About My Practice
Nido providers are committed to:
Culturally Humble Care
We prioritize understanding the beliefs, backgrounds, and values of our clients — this includes their culture, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexuality, language, communication styles, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.
Additionally, each therapist makes it a part of their duty to learn from each individual client from their own personal experiences as well as outside training and education. Overall, we clinicians understand that we will never be fully competent about the evolving and dynamic nature of a patient’s experiences.
Trauma Informed Care
We hold regard for our clients’ trauma and its impact on their behavior, mental health, and ability to engage in treatment. We suspect that our clients have a trauma history and we take steps to avoid inadvertently triggering or re-traumatizing the client in treatment. This type of care involves recognizing that trauma has significant effects on people and is often under-recognized and under-reported. We respond in ways that emphasize safety, collaboration, and empowerment by providing education to clients about their trauma symptoms while helping them to feel protected in the process.
Decolonizing Therapy
We bravely and earnestly confront the multi-generational impact that colonization has on all of us. Nido providers acknowledge privileged and oppressed parts of ourselves and admit to the ways our profession has caused a great deal of harm. We take tenacious efforts to end individualistic and pathologizing Eurocentric methods of wellness–one that includes those who have been purposely excluded and historically forgotten.
In treatment, our therapists, strive to uncover and tend to the real roots of the symptoms and suffering from surviving systemic and cultural disasters.
Looking Inward
We invest in ourselves through our own self-reflection. Dedicating time and energy to often feel uncomfortable and acknowledge our own wounding's and areas of need within ourselves. We take serious efforts to deepen our understanding of ourselves, remaining humble, and in continuous growth. Whether it is through our own personal therapy, mentorships, or spiritual practices, we find it important to experience what many of our clients do on the receiving end of care and learning.
Depth Oriented Therapeutic Skills
Along with acknowledging the capitalist, imperialist, cis-hetero patriarchal catastrophes our society inflicts, we use a depth and integrative approach to working with clients. We work with and beside our clients in a holistic way, addressing the many ways they can experience healing. This often means community and group support, nourishment, collaborating with other healers, creation, body work, connecting with our past and current selves, education, and beyond. This type of healing takes an investment of time, intense energy, unlearning, and learning, and can be a slow painful process of realization. Peeling the layers back is not for the rushed and the faint of heart.
Clinicians who offer sliding scale payment structures may offer lower or reduced fees based on an individual's ability to pay. Please contact this clinician for more details regarding their fees or sliding scale policy.