Our Team
Rebecca Cariati | they/them
*accepting new patients
Acupuncturist and Herbalist in Burlington and Bristol, VT &
Practice Visionary
I became an acupuncturist after being fired from my last jobby-job. My mistake? Taking cues from the community I was serving, not from our out-of-touch donors. At that time, I thought justice and liberation was the domain of nonprofits. But being booted by the very people I thought were “my people” called that idea into question in a very big way.
How could I tend justice and radical belonging outside of organizational structures? Could justice work be done on a somatic level to cultivate refuge and belonging in a world that undermines our inherent worth?
With these questions alight, I dug deep, I cried a LOT, and eventually realized that acupuncture and herbal medicine had already helped me do just that. It had tended the pieces of myself that I shunned and cast-away in order to belong. I was in my mid-20s, in the closet, an immigrant, in the throes of disordered eating, chronic physical pain and depression. My first acupuncturist, Itzik Zangi, relieved my physical pain but also (and perhaps most importantly) held a space of true refuge for my masking to thaw. And little by little, I found more belonging in my own body and mind which is what health actually is. This profound level of being seen, accepted, and tended with deep reverence is what I aspire to do for my clients whether you’re taking your first or your last breaths on this planet.
Here, Queer and Trans folks, kids, those with “sensory stuff”, ASD, ADHD, and PTSD can access highly-attuned care. Here, folks with marginalized identities don’t have to over-explain themselves. Here, you meet face-to-face with clinicians who share lived experience.
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Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac.) in Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania
Dip. Ac, NCCAOM (national licensing board)
Member of the Vermont State Acupuncture Association
Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner (TCMP) degree, including 1,000+ clinical training hours in acupuncture and herbal medicine from Oshio College of Acupuncture and Herbology, Victoria, BC
Western Clinical Herbalism, Wild Seed School of Herbal Studies’ Intermediate Program, Salt Spring Island, BC
Pediatric Essentials Training at the Center for Acupuncture Pediatrics
Birth Doula Training with DONA
Anxiety, depression, and shame are frequent uninvited guests. You feel different, like you’re the problem. Others don’t understand you. These feelings can show-up in your body as belly aches, headaches, shakiness, or trouble falling asleep. You skip birthday parties, meals, have panic attacks, and leave doctors offices without explanation of what’s happening to you. The tension just keeps building up inside without anywhere to go.
Hi! My name is Castle and I’m a White-bodied rostered psychotherapist and a music maker. As a Queer, non-binary creative in a small body I’m honored to listen to those whose stories have been pushed to the sides by dominant systems. In our work together, I will support you to lean into your unabashed self, as silly or as serious as you wish to be, to open space for you to feel what a big and glorious gift you are to the world. We will build ways to “get things off your chest” and alleviate the discomforts in your belly, head, neck and shoulders. This, combined with intuitive movement, breathwork, yoga, and other ways of shaking your body around with no judgment, will open-up more awareness of what’s happening in your body/mind. As you cultivate more trust in yourself and understand what your body is “saying” to you, you’ll begin to release all that tension inside. You will have the opportunity to get in touch with your power.
Clients say I have a friendliness and casualness about me that makes establishing a strong connection where you can be authentic, pretty easy. Those navigating anxiety, perfectionism, or who have a strong inner critic, describe my goofiness and authenticity as an antidote. It’s my honor to bear witness to you, and to get curious about your niche interests and to sit together in silence without any added expectations of the “right way” to show up in therapy.
To explore working with Castle, call 802-222-0436 or fill out the contact form.
Castle Franks | they/them
*accepting new clients
Child, Teen and Adult Rostered Therapist, telehealth
Specialties: anxiety, depression, self-esteem, perfectionism, inner child work, creatives, neurodivergence, Internal Family Systems (IFS), belonging, identity exploration, LGBTQIA2+
G Cenedella | they/them
*accepting new clients
Child, Teen, and Adult Clinical Intern
Interest areas: trauma, anxiety, chronic illness, disconnection from body/emotions, abandonment, survivors, LGBTQIA-2+, children and adults, somatic therapy
You keep people away – you don’t want to be seen. The fear has started to speak loudly to you, through your body. Anxiety/panic attacks, disordered eating, disconnection from yourself and others, and numbness are your daily companions. You feel separate from your body and feelings, your heart, your values, and even your integrity. You want to find your way back to connection, but don’t know how.
Hi, my name is G and I’m a Queer and Trans clinical intern in a White body. I enjoy working with children, adolescents, and adults on:
Disconnection from feelings and body
Desire to find and build support within self and with others
Hopelessness and fear
Pain (physical, emotional, spiritual, familial, romantic)
Uncertainty in sense of self, purpose, meaning in their existence
Anxiety
Depression
Exposure to violence
Explosive emotions
Desire to name the unnamed and see the unseen
Abandonment
Desire to believe and trust in yourself and rewrite old stories
In our work together, you will find more consistency in being present in the here and now. Finding buoyancy and suppleness under emotional pressure or pain, it is possible to return to a place of joy and ease with your body. Inviting in a softer, more open heart that feels brave and safe enough to truly hear, you will learn to ask for things that you need or want from your loved ones and to deeply receive what you're given.
Allow me to walk with you, and support you in knowing, deeply, that your emotions have a home within you, and so do you. To explore working with G, fill out a contact form or call 802-222-0436.
Jaime Dawson | they/them
*accepting new clients
Child, Adult and Family Rostered Therapist, telehealth
Specialties: trauma, gender-affirming care, family systems, self-advocacy, boundary work, survivors, regulation, anxiety, depression, neurodiversity, somatics
You try (or tried as a child) to make yourself small and stay under the radar to just get by. Home life is/was unpredictable and sometimes volatile. You’ve struggled with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and hopelessness. You don’t trust easily and are guarded. You may feel the impacts of this as numbness, tension, pain, or a sense of disconnection from your physicality. You may believe you’re all you’ll ever have in this world.
You may struggle with your own gender identity or, as a parent/caregiver, need support to show-up for a gender creative, gender expansive, trans, or non-binary child or teen. You don’t have the language – you feel stilted trying to understand yourself or your child. You are seeking a safer space to learn and grow in your understanding and confidence but don’t know where to turn.
Hi, my name is Jaime. I’m a White Bodied, trans-identified nonbinary queer person and a rostered therapist with a deep interest in healing individual and family trauma through the body. Through my work in community mental health, I’ve worked with children, youth, adults, and families grappling with abuse, neglect, systems of oppression, trauma, accepting/understanding gender expansiveness, and a lack of healthy boundaries.
I support my clients (whether they are children, youth, families, or adults) to:
Identify where you end and others begin so you can establish boundaries that protect yourself and your relationships
Break away from familial and societal pressures that feel suffocating and develop your own ideas and opinions
Learn to trust yourself and others
Explore your hopes and dreams
Absolve yourself from taking responsibility for the harms you’ve experienced
Reconnect with your body to cultivate self-understanding, compassion and healing
My clients say that my presence and care is steadfast and I hold hope as though it were a compass. Allow me to see and hear you, your child, and family system and to offer just the kind of support you need.
To explore therapy with Jaime, call 802-222-0436 or fill out the contact form.
Penélope Williams | she/her/ella
*accepting new private pay clients
Teen, Adult, Families, and Couples Therapist, telehealth
Specialties: neurodiversity, trauma, anxiety, grief, anti-racism, spirituality, medical case management, survivors of violence, couples, teens, adults, LGTBQIA2+, BIPOC, immigrants, farmers, Brainspotting, somatic therapy
You, your teen, or your partnership are feeling overwhelmed trying to cope with the demands of daily life. You don’t have the supports you need to consistently enjoy your life. Instead, you feel anxious and down, not knowing how to truly take care of yourself or help your teen to thrive. You may be dealing with medical needs that are complex or that you’re not getting answers for and it’s impacting your quality of life. Your relationships are suffering, you feel isolated and stuck. You know you want a change but where to turn? How to begin?
Hi, my name is Penélope and I’m a somatic psychotherapist. Since the 90s I’ve been a counselor working from a trauma transformational perspective. As an Afro-Indigenous woman, I’ve served community in shelters for domestic violence survivors, LGBTQ youth centers, healthcare settings and with aging folks. I’ve worked with children, youth, couples, and families and continue to! Over the years, I have gained specialized skills to integrate the body into the work of healing so that all of you is included.
Whether I’m working with teens, adults, or couples you can expect our work together to look like:
addressing a particular block in real time to learn how to use to tools for easier daily living
use meditation, Brainspotting, and/or deep breathing to support you to calm anxiety, imposter syndrome, or disconnection from yourself or your loved ones
use the wisdoms of your body to unravel the weeds of trauma to reveal greater connection to yourself, others, and beyond
My clients say that working with me reminds them that they can be autonomous within their own mind/body/spirit. That you can learn new skills, gain knowledge, resources, and tools to move with more ease in your life. Our work can allow a smoother and clearer journey, past the struggle, past the pain. In learning to accept support, you can build resilience to learn from and heal the fear and worry. You, your teen, or your partnership can find that kind of transformation. Together, you can create and build healthy tools in order to thrive, reach for the stars, and shine.
Whether you are seeking therapy for the first of 100th time, welcome. I'll meet you right where you are - in learning tools for easier daily living, managing your medical needs better, healing trauma through the body, and working with grief, anger, anxiety, or the impacts of systemic racism, homophobia, or transphobia. Allow me support you to build a sense of yourself as inherently valuable.
To explore working with Penélope, call 802-222-0436 or fill out the contact form.
You feel unsure where to turn as your child or teen struggles with big emotions and maybe even getting physical with you, their sibling(s), or peers. You wonder how to support your child to feel more safe in their body and mind so they can thrive. You want to strengthen the bond that has suffered alongside the mental health struggles both of you have been facing.
Trying to support your child or teen’s mental health while pouring from an empty cup isn’t working. “We all need therapy,” you think to yourself, “but is that a thing?”
Yes, it is.
I’m Corrine Mertz and I became a Child and Family Therapist after working as a residential counselor in a group home for teens here in Vermont. I was deeply inspired by the sense of belonging and the relationships built upon empathy and honesty with teens and their families. Ever since, I’ve been supporting children, teens, families, and adults as individuals and as family-units to heal from trauma, build stronger bonds, find calm in the storm, and live with a greater sense of meaning and purpose.
I particularly enjoy working with children, youth, and families that are marginalized here in Vermont. As a Queer parent, I have both lived experience and clinical expertise supporting LGBTQ2+ youth and families to navigate the complexities of coming out, gender exploration, bullying, parent-child conflict, anxiety, depression, and trauma. During my nearly 15 years as a psychotherapist, I have gained competency and practiced cultural humility as a White-bodied therapist serving BIPOC and immigrant communities.
In our work together, you can expect to cultivate trust and learn how to hold complex and contradictory emotions while feeling into the possibility of greater calm, confidence, and meaning in your life. With kids and adults alike, I utilize somatic (body-based methods) to help the body process emotion and trauma to unlock negative self-talk and find compassion for yourself.
As a child and teen therapist, I support children starting in preschool through to young adulthood to find their voice, process trauma through art, psychodrama, body or eye movements, and talk — offering an outlet for past harms to be released in a safe environment. From there, we open-up space to build emotional intelligence, a sense of body awareness and autonomy, self-confidence, more resiliency, and coping mechanisms when challenging emotions arise.
When working with families, I support you (whether your family structure is single-parent, co-parenting, poly, or two-parent household) to cultivate honesty and vulnerability and build healthy intimacy with one another. I bring in Brainspotting (an evidence-based practice to help the brain process and release trauma) to support building trust with your own body and mind that can then build, over time, in your relationships.
To explore a more embodied, compassionate, and connected way forward, call 802-222-0436 or fill out the contact form.
Corrine Mertz | she/her
*accepting waitlist clients
Child and Family Therapist, Burlington and Bristol, VT
Specialties: children, youth, young adults, families, trauma, anxiety, LGBTQ+, Queer families, parenting, creatives, neurodiversity, OCD, disordered eating, marginalized identities, somatic therapy, Brainspotting
In Her Image photography Amy Aiko Hovland | she/her
*accepting waitlist clients
Teen and Adult Rostered Therapist, telehealth
Specialties: religious trauma, meditation, survivors, identity, spirituality, poverty, neurodiversity, creatives, relationships that challenge heteronormativity, intergenerational trauma and resilience, complicated family dynamics, sensitive folks, People of the Global Majority, Queer, Trans, and Genderqueer folks, transracial adoptees, parents, sex workers, Brainspotting, somatic therapy
You don’t feel ready for what you’re going through. You may be facing hardship because of gender role non-conformity, capitalist abuses, queerness, poverty, racism, classism, misogyny, ageism, adultism. You are feeling more pain around being marginalized than pride in who you are.
The feeling of “not ____ enough” is your long-time companion. The search for an identity that you can claim with confidence is a source of pain and confusion. You struggle to show-up for yourself in the face of perfectionism and White Body Supremacy that erases and destroys your uniqueness. You’ve frequently felt yourself to be an imposter, and long to feel a sense of belonging.
Hi! My name is Amy Aiko. I’m a Queer fourth-gen Japanese American biracial person and a somatic rostered psychotherapist. In our work, I will support you as a practical, openminded skeptic, to separate the difference between your thoughts, your bodily sensations, the story you tell yourself, and the feelings that affect you. This opens up space for you to get a glimpse of something incredible inside yourself you never knew was there. It can be like the sensation of synchronicity with your elder, wiser self. By leaning into therapy as an experimenter of your own life, you can experience your thought patterns changing before your eyes.
Clients say that working with me is like having an intergenerational resilience scout, a beacon of Queer multicultural joy at their side that supports them to dissolve the binary thinking that is keeping them isolated, lonely, and stuck.
Interested in exploring work with Amy Aiko? Call 802-222-0436 or fill out the contact form.