About Aiya
I grew up in Southern Oregon — near a small town with a Shakespeare festival, a food co-op I worked at in undergrad, and an unusual density of artists, healers, and seekers. It was a place where depth was taken seriously, where beauty and suffering coexisted openly, and where I learned early that inner life matters. I was a sensitive, curious child who drew obsessively — birds, horses, fantasy creatures — trying to make sense of a world that felt both wondrous and overwhelming. Art was my first language for things I didn’t yet have words for.
That thread has never left me.
My path into this work wasn’t always clear. I took detours through identity crisis and unhealthy coping as a young adult, through volunteering at a rape crisis center at 19 before I knew what I wanted to be, through an undergraduate psychology degree that slowly became a calling rather than a major. When I discovered art therapy, in a class that felt like someone had touched something I didn’t know could be awakened, I understood where I needed to be.
I trained at Naropa University in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology and Art Therapy, a lineage steeped in contemplative practice, embodied presence, and the belief that healing is as much about being as doing. I have been a meditation practitioner for over a decade. I have worked alongside survivors of sex trafficking in Cambodia, in Drug Courts and residential programs and integrated primary care clinics, with LGBTQ+ youth who couldn’t find affirming care anywhere else, and in private practice with people who have done significant work and are ready to go deeper. I came out as queer in my twenties, and that experience of finding one’s own truth against deep cultural and relational pressure informs how I sit with clients who are doing the same or parallel work.
I am currently in training as a psilocybin therapist working in the regulated model through Reflective Healing, not as a trend, but as a natural extension of a career spent working at the edges of what conventional therapy can reach — and exploring what remains possible in human experience.
I love therapy because I love people. I love how we think, get stuck and unstuck, make messes, love with abandon, whisper our heart’s desires, grieve and yearn, and try—again and again—to unlock the cages of our hearts after we’ve been hurt. I often say, “Once you know someone’s story, you can’t help but love them.” One of my teachers often also quotes George Eliot: “What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?” I see my work as a therapist as inseparable from my work as a human: to help make the journey less difficult, to build bridges, and to notice moments of wonder along the way.
THE WORK
My practice integrates Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (which I have trained in for nine years, through advanced certification and mentorship), EMDR, and Art Therapy — not as interchangeable tools but as different ways of listening to what the body and the image already know. I work with trauma, anxiety, attachment wounds, addiction, and life transitions. Clients often seek me out when purely cognitive approaches no longer feel sufficient and they are ready to explore healing, or whole-ing, through the body’s language—through image, movement, gesture, or sensation. Together, we attend to subtle rhythms of regulation and connection, allowing new patterns of presence, resilience, and meaning to emerge. I work with the nervous system as an archive, with creativity as intelligence, and with the therapeutic relationship itself as the primary site of change.
I am also an Approved Clinical Supervisor, the founder of True Essence Therapy — a queer-centered group practice — and I have supervised graduate students at Naropa University and currently supervise therapists working toward licensure.
CREDENTIALS
LPC · LAC · ATR-BC · ACS · NMIT
Master of Counseling in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology, Art Therapy Specialization — Naropa University, 2015
Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Minor in Studio Art — Southern Oregon University, 2009
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Colorado, 2017
Licensed Addiction Counselor (LAC), Colorado, 2017
Board Certified Registered Art Therapist (ATR-BC), American Art Therapy Association, 2017
Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist, Levels 1–3, Advanced Practitioner, 2017-2022
EMDR Therapy, Maiberger Institute, 2017
Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS), 2024
Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) Level I, Janina Fisher, 2024
Ketamine Assisted Therapy (KAP) Certification, PRATI, 2025
Natural Medicine in Training Licensure (NMIT), Elemental Psychedelics, 2025
Deeper Dives with Aiya:
