Kate Johnston

Hello! I have over 16 years of total experience in the mental health field, including inpatient/crisis stabilization, integrated care, and private practice. I am a liberation-focused therapist and have always worked with people with marginalized identities and experiences. I especially enjoy working with the LGBTQIA2S+ community as I identify as queer myself! I am also a person who lives with multiple chronic medical issues and enjoy working with others who share these experiences. Unfortunately, many people have had poor experiences with therapists and the mental health system. Another specialty area of mine is providing adequate and inclusive therapy to help heal from the wounds people have experienced due to our inadequate mental health system.

I approach the treatment of mental health like physical health issues because they are! For this reason, I use many somatic-based modalities and interventions. I integrate somatic-based modalities with other therapies as well, including IFS, mindfulness, trauma-focused, systems theory, queer/feminist theory, and other liberation-based modalities. It is important to me to provide individualized care to my clients and to adapt my Self in a way that supports this goal. For this reason, I encourage the client lead as much as possible as our sessions are for the client's benefit, not mine. Of course, I can be more directive if this is someone's preference or is needed while we build rapport.

Being a liberation-focused therapist means I help people understand what is theirs and what is internalized from society, culture, family, peers, etc. This can often be freeing and empowering for the people I work with and allow for greater progress. I tend to be a very skills-based clinician and, often, one of the first goals I assist clients with is improving one's ability to cope with current stressors and issues. I also see value in processing to improve insight as way to not only improve development of appropriate skills, but also to assist clients with improving understanding of the Self and validating the Self's experiences.