Airy Michelle-Mason

My 6 years of experience as a pre-licensed therapist and more recently as an LMFT have been a gift to me, and hopefully to the clients I've worked with. I get to be a cheerleader, a guide, a co-pilot, a collaborator, and a witness to your growth and healing. It's a truly special role and a calling for me. Many of the clients I see have intersectional identities. Among these, the combo of neurodivergent brains, often self-diagnosed or late-diagnosed, and gender-noncompliant identities (my own GNC term) is the biggest group in my case load. Since I am a genderqueer nobinarian Gen X artist, "grownup" theater kid, and recovering people-pleaser with late-diagnosed AuDHD, this makes sense. An academic geek who eventually burned out on hard copy books (audiobooks saved me), I have 2 Master's degrees. The first is in creativity and Jungian theory. The second is in clinical psychology with LGBTQIA+ affirming and spiritual/Depth psychology classes. While 1:1 sessions with adults take up most of my work day, I also work with teens, married couples, and adults in poly triads. And I have helped a handful of cis-het clients process traumatic memories using EMDR therapy, expressive arts, mindfulness exercises, and a warm, relational style.

My therapy style is gentle, compassionate, non-judgmental, and mostly non-directive. I rarely tell clients what they should do. I see the process as a collaboration between two people. One of those people happens to have some extra training and skills, as well as wisdom from life experiences. You are the expert in your life experiences though. Together, we can practice ways to cope with a variety of mental health challenges, reduce your most disruptive symptoms, and co-build new ways of thinking and living that are more aligned with who you are. Early on, our sessions will focus on your therapy goals and getting to know each other. From here, some clients want to do weekly un-structured open-ended talk therapy. Others ask for a specific approach like EMDR therapy, CBT, Jungian expressive arts, etc. When a client reaches some or all of the goals they started with, we discuss ways to maintain new habits and how to handle future challenges. In some ways, my job is for you to leave our work with renewed self-confidence, so how often we meet may decrease over time. Some clients want a short-term approach, and I have also seen some clients for 2-5 years.

In our first session, I will ask you a lot of questions, some of them from a formal clinical intake form. We will also spend time talking about what brings you to therapy, what you want to get out of therapy, and what gets in your way.