Marisa Lauren La Piana

Welcome! Marisa identifies as a queer white, neurodivergent, intersex, femme clinician with Jewish and Italian ancestry and uses she/they pronouns. Her practice was created with the needs of women, young adults, queer, polyamorous, kinky, transgender, disabled and neurodivergent folks at the center. It is deeply influenced and inspired by the inherent strengths, resilience and wisdom of these communities. She takes into account systemic, historical and intergenerational traumas that often create challenges for those holding these identities. Many queer, trans and disabled clients come to therapy with body-related trauma and or feeling disconnected from or overwhelmed by their bodies as a survival response to homophobia, transphobia and ableism. A somatic trauma based healing approach can help you start to build a deeper connection with your body so that you can live as authentically as possible. I believe that therapy is political. It is important for Marisa to create space for all of our intersectional human identities and the ways in which both our privileged and marginalized identities impact our lives and shape our relationships and interactions, including in the therapeutic space.

Marisa takes a feminist, queer and anti-oppressive approach to therapeutic work. She has specialized training in a wide array of therapeutic approaches including: somatic trauma based healing approaches, mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR); Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). She also incorporates solution-focused and person-centered approaches and offer longer-term insight oriented therapy as needed. We will work together to find the approach that would work best for you!

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She bring the following values to her clinical work:

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anti-racism

de-colonization

health at every size

queer and trans affirming

polyamory affirming

neurodiversity affirming

anti-oppressive

feminist

consent-centered

survivor centered

sex positive

pro-sex work

kink affirming