Colleen O’Connell (She/her)

Everyone experiences stress—I have extensive experience working with clients to manage and alleviate their stress, whether that stress is due to home life, work, school, or just the general state of the world.

As a queer therapist myself, I have a lot of passion for working with the LGBTQ+ community. From exploring identities to figuring out how to come out to processing how the communities around us respond to our identities, I can walk with you through struggles, questions, or just needing a safe space to exist as a queer person.

I have several years of experience working with children in foster care and adoption communities. It’s important to me that the voice of the adoptee is centered, when so often the adoptive parent, adoption workers, or others involved in the adoption process are centered by society’s narrative. Adoption is about the adoptee, and their story deserves to be heard both in therapy sessions and in the world at large.

I have several years of working with trauma with clients. How each client works through their trauma is as varied as the number of people out there, but I offer a safe space to work through trauma histories and learn healthier ways of living.

I use a variety of mindfulness-based techniques in sessions for clients who benefit from them. I try to expand our knowledge of mindfulness—it isn’t just sitting and breathing, but building a deeper connection with our bodies and our environments so we can stay present and focused when we need—or want—to.

I have used CBT extensively, as it’s one of the most recognized treatment orientations by clients. I love to use it when clients find it useful—it can be helpful to focus on the way our thoughts, feelings, and actions interact. But I also like to include the caveat that CBT does not work for everyone, and that while many may find it helpful to borrow concepts from CBT, it is not the end-all, be-all of treatment orientations.