Grace Silvia, LCSW (she/her)

Hakomi

Hakomi is a body-centered, mindfulness-based approach. Hakomi uses body awareness to access the unconscious. Both trauma and brilliant, creative healing wisdom are stored in the body. By learning how to listen to and follow your body's cues, you will find a depth , ease and aliveness that working in ordinary consciousness can't access.

Feminist

As a radical feminist, I believe my work must: > deeply honor each person's inner wisdom instead of pathologizing doctrine; > recognize the deep soul wounding that chronic and acute oppression, systems of injustice, and planetary pain cause; and > orient deep personal healing in service to becoming an empowered agent of change, rather than adjusting to being a cog in the machine.

Experiential

Whether talking about what happened yesterday or in your family growing up, we will work with what you experience as you explore it in the moment. That way the work is fresh, not a stale re-hashing of an old, stuck story. Using basic building blocks of gentle curiosity, compassion and honoring both what shows up as well as resistance to what shows up, deep transformation happens.

Anxiety

How do we find a way to sit with anxiety, when it makes us want to crawl out of our skins? But it's likely desperately trying to protect us on a core level. Can we find a way to have compassion for its desperate work? It can become an ally if we can listen!

PTSD

Therapy should not be re-traumatizing! If you find yourself dissociating during or after therapy or dreading it, something is wrong. Working in a trauma-informed way means I will help you learn the signs of when you are beginning to re-experience the trauma, and how to bring yourself back into safety. The work must go at your pace, guided by your body's subtle cues and your inner 'no' and 'yes.'

Depression

Deep sadness. Can we stop pushing it away, even for a moment, and listen to what it is desperately trying to tell us? This is no easy task in our culture of 'Produce!' and 'Be happy at all costs!' Yet there is so much to be sad about personally, societally and planetarily. Pushing it away makes it dig in deeper. But by honoring it, we can find its meaning, our passion and our unique call to action.

Schizophrenia

Many people hear voices, see things others don't, or have unusual beliefs. It's only a problem when it makes your life hard. What is labeled schizophrenia can be a brilliant response to trauma, a spiritual sensitivity needing a container, or....? It is for you to find your own meaning. I would be honored to support you on this path.

Bipolar

Deep lows and intense highs can wreck havoc on your life. But they can also be gifts of exquisite sensitivity, a response to trauma, or/and a spiritual awakening. I am learning from friends, clients and colleagues what can be helpful. I would be honored to share what I am learning and learn from you on this journey.