Cultural and Systemic Oppression

Mary Roberts (She/Her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MA, LPC, LMHC

Issues related to cultural and systemic oppression inform all aspects of my work as a clinician, supervisor, and counselor educator. For me, it's impossible to talk about what's going on for an individual without exploring what's occurring in their systems. Anti-oppression action toward justice is usually multicontextual, and I approach these issues as a learner, collaborator, and advocate.

Katrina Severin (She/Her)

Professional Counselor Associate

MS, LPC Associate

I completed my internship at a clinic focused primarily on supporting immigrants and refugees, as well as various other system-impacted populations. My personal identities as a queer, neurodivergent woman from an impoverished and religious background also inform my understanding of power and privilege. I am committed to ongoing personal and professional work around anti-racism and anti-oppression.

River Delogu-Clark (she/her)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA, NCC, CADC I

For the 10 years before going back to grad school, I was a paralegal at a civil rights / employment law firm serving people who had been discriminated against at work or suffered from police brutality. I also wrote 2 bills, one of them later becoming law. Over the course of these 10 years, deep internal changes, including coming out, led me to want to help people in ways deeper than my role as a paralegal allowed me to, but I am still very much an advocate at heart and in the therapy room.

Sam Skye (he/him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

ATR, LPC

My work with clients often explores the impacts of oppression on mental health. Activism and art making focused on making and envisioning change can be part of our healing process.

Joaquin Lopez (he/him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

M.S.

Systems of oppression permeate every moment of our lives. Racism, sexism, and classism are few of the many systems of oppression that have been part of our story whether we are aware of it or not. Understanding how oppression has affected my personal being, I am able to work with clients to create a safe authentic space to honor their whole experience, and see them for who they are.

Scott LaForce (He, Them, Hers)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MFT-Associate

Patriarchy has had its day. It is time for the age of the divine feminine, which is not a concept limited to women. All integral beings possess both feminine and masculine traits. intentionally flowing between them is an artform that provides unending benefit. Rejoice in your strengths.

Anchor Within Counseling

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Behavioral Health Office

Cultural oppression refers to the methods in which values and practices are imposed on certain communities in ways that lead to suppression of cultural identity. Systemic oppression involves the institutionalized discrimination and inequality embedded within policies and societal structures which serve to limit the advancement of a group of people. Despite Black and Brown people being the global majority, they experience disproportionately high rates of oppression right here.

Emma Jewell (she/her)

Somatic Practitioner

Radical Aliveness Practitioner, Family Constellations Facilitator & LMT

I approach all personal healing through the lens and awareness of the cultural and systemic impact of someone's experience. I integrate awareness of these systems through research and personal study to meet each individual with more depth and specificity.

Becca Flatt (She/Her)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

MSW, LCSW

I have researched a wide verity of resources pertaining to the oppression faced by Black, African American, Latino, and Chicano communities. My clinical conceptualization of the oppression facing these communities comes from a Black feminist/ Chicana feminist lens. It can help significantly to have someone who has walked a mile in the same type of shoes.

Lolo Halman (he/him)

Professional Counselor

M.A., Diploma of Process Work

With over a decade of experience in social movement work, I specialize in transformative justice and healing within relationships. As someone from privileged identities, I've undergone significant personal growth to understand and dismantle how these identities shape my perspective and further social injustice, and I'm dedicated to supporting others in building this awareness too.

Ajay Dheer (He/They)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

M.S. Marriage and Family Therapy

In my graduate education, I have both taken and taught classes on racism and systemic oppression. In my clinical practice, I see systemic oppression to be more then race; it also includes gender, sexuality, ethical non-monogamy, ability, citizenship, etc. Much of my experience working with cultural oppression include the manifestations of anxiety and depression.

Trish Nicholson (she/her)

Professional Counselor Associate

Board-certified (NCC)

I understand that navigating cultural and systemic oppression is deeply tied to historical and ongoing injustices that affect our communities. Together, we’ll explore the impacts of oppression on your mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, drawing on the strengths and wisdom of our traditions and ancestors. We’ll work on strategies to cope, resist, and thrive, focusing on healing and empowerment.

caroline sabi (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I have lived in three different countries and have a deep understanding and respect for cultural diversity.

Christpher Robertson

Professional Counselor Associate

R11364

I specialize in addressing how cultural and systemic forces—like transphobia, racism, patriarchy, classism—impact mental health and identity. Using somatic, creative, and nature-based approaches, I help clients reconnect with their sense of self and agency. My work supports healing as a form of resistance, fostering space for complexity, truth, and transformation beyond oppressive norms.

Kestrel Fae Tippie (they/them)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

OR LMFT # T2221, CA LMFT #130759

The dominant culture we are surrounded by and must survive within is destructive and exploitative and deeply unjust. It is corrosive to the soul and to the fabric of our belonging to each other and to Life. It is the cause of much of our suffering. You are not broken if you are struggling within it. I bring a liberatory, anti-oppressive, decolonial lens to therapy as a space where we unpack the influence of these forces and find life giving ways of navigating and dismantling them.

Desiree Guzman

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

My graduate program concentrated on incorporating cultural competence in my work with individuals. We examined the effects of ongoing systemic oppression as well as how the dominant narratives effect our sense of person hood. There are multiple realities within a sociopolitical and cultural context that are defined by race, gender, as well economic status.

Jen Yerty (They/She)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, CADC I

'To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.' Oppression takes on many forms in the lives of the oppressed, from financial challenges to negative self-talk, substance use to mental health challenges. Working on eliminating systemic oppression is a focus of my life and therapeutic work with clients.

Pearl Waldorf (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MA, MSed, LPC

I am an assimilated white, Jewish identified cis gendered queer able-bodied woman. The anti-racism work I have been engaged in over the past few years is transforming my spirit, my world view and my lens on the work of relational therapy. Together we can help you ground into your own privileged and subjugated identities with an aim towards more more community and work effectiveness, more relationship satisfaction and deeper enjoyment in your life.

Neil Panchmatia (he/they)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MS, Licensed Professional Counselor

As a therapist and individual, I am keenly aware of the challenges of today’s sociocultural environment in our country and strive to do therapy that meets the unique needs and challenges of my clients – from a place of cultural humility and understanding of my own intersections of privilege/marginalization. Therapy is your place to heal, thrive and rebuild your resources to continue living.

Heather Simpson (she/her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA MFT Associate

Navigating cultural and systemic oppression has been a lifelong journey. it's important that I share the knowledge that I have cultivated with others. As a Black queer woman, living in marginalized spaces, I am able to understand systemic oppression from different lenses. With coursework stemming from women’s and gender studies, to philosophy to psychology I built a foundation of understanding to help clients acknowledge how systems of oppression operate In their lives snd create change.

Amanda Fitzpatrick (She/they)

Marriage and Family Therapist

LMFT

Our work will wrap around the ways in which your body has been privileged or oppressed and how that shows up in your relationships. I have a strong commitment to Social Justice and believe deeply that the path to justice is through relationships: familial, career and work, neighborhood, cultural, national. I have specific experience working with fat folx, LGBTQAI+ relationships and individuals, differently abled folx, addiction and co-dependency, bi- and multi-racial couples.

Rachel Kendall (she/ her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MS, C7689

Although I am not a person of color, I have taken dedicated time to address and confront my implicit biases to fight against cultural and systemic oppression at it's core: to challenge the mindset of the oppressor, instead of simply sympathizing with the oppressed. One related training I did included 'How to be (Less) Harmful: Training White Helpers to Serve BIPOC clients.' https://www.ar-tic.org

Heather Asaadi (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I think it is important to explore how your identity and relational patterns are impacted by different systems: family, culture, society, & oppression. These systems can play a significant role in our mental health.

Amanda Melbostad (she/they)

Student Counselor

200 RYT, MA Art Therapy Student Intern

Although I don't love the term expertise, I do have a keen eye to detect systems of oppression and the conditioned stories we internalize. This came through my experience in the corporate apparel world, the help of amazing mentors and a DEI certification, as well as listening to the diverse people around me.

sandeep kumar

Licensed Professional Counselor

As a person of color, I understand the reality of coping with systemic oppression when one is of a cultural, sexual, gender or other minority. I make efforts to be sensitive to how this appears in my clients’ life, including challenging therapeutic modalities that are often conceived by and for those of majority status. I offer a safe space within today’s political climate.

Rebeca Rocha (She/Her)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

PhD, LCSW

I have 6 years of experience working with immigrants and people of color. I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology and Culture, and I am knowledgeable about issues of systemic oppression. Having come to the U.S. as an immigrant from Brazil myself, I have a deep understanding of the challenges of adjusting to a new country or being part of a historically marginalized group.

Vedalia Zellers (she/they)

Clinical Social Work Associate

MSW, CSWA

Our unjust society affects people’s mental health on a daily basis. Depending on your identities, you may be coping with historical trauma, separation from family, unequal access to resources, negative judgments and assumptions from others, fewer opportunities, social exclusion, threats to your safety, hopelessness in the face of global injustice, and much more. In therapy, I'll invite you to bring in issues of any size. There's room to acknowledge and explore the complexity of your reality.

Camillia de la Garza Thompson (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MA, LPC, CMA

Psychological theories and practices have historically perpetuated the cultural and systemic oppression of marginalized identities. I offer a safe space to challenge these inherited stories to support your being as you authentically desire them to be.

Miranda York

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

I enjoy working with historical and ancestral trauma and consider the impact of the cultural, social, and political context of your life and the lives of your parents and grandparents. This has an influence on all of us, and I believe it's important not to just look at the nuclear family as an isolated, apolitical unit with singular influence on our psychology, but to consider the broader context

Danette Gillespie-Otto

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Prior to becoming a psychotherapist, I received training as a facilitator on issues of diversity and systemic oppression. Thus, my clinical lens is honed to not only recognize our individual and family experiences, but our group identity traumas as well. In therapy, we work with both your unique personal experience and your group identity experience.