Hi! I’m Sarah, and I am a community therapist offering relationally-focused mental health counseling in West Asheville.

I work with folks looking to heal from the impacts of dehumanizing systems that shape our lives. We walk alongside one another to reclaim feeling, to resist pathologization of suffering and survival, and to show up in daily life and relationships guided by a commitment to collective liberation.

My clients are often helpers and caregivers: educators, healthcare workers and parents who are choosing daily subversion of these systems, in solidarity with those most impacted. I also see clients who have been directly targeted: formerly or currently homeless folks, people who use drugs, and folks who’ve been incarcerated.

Why Lichen?

Lichen looks like one organism, but is at least two, and often three or four. Lichens live on all kinds of things—bark, rocks, the ground—but only thrive where the air is fresh. Very slowly, using their bodies, lichens break down rocks into soil.

Lichen exemplifies some understandings on which I base my practice:

  • We are made of relationships

  • The external conditions of our lives shape us

  • We can shape them back

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