the radical center

My story

My name is Leslie and I am a native Texan living in the Northwest. I am a mother of four, and I have always had a somewhat unconventional perspective, questioning what I’m told and thinking outside the box.

I earned a BA in Psychology in 2008 and went straight to law school in 2009. During my second year of law school, I decided a legal career was not for me and I went back to the drawing board.

I spent the next several years raising my children and working part-time in the field of natural medicine before returning to higher education, enrolling in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Master’s program at Antioch University in 2019. There I had the opportunity to learn and improve counseling skills and therapeutic approaches, but I also encountered something deeply disturbing: the usurpation of traditional therapy values by Critical Social Justice ideology. Compared with my previous experiences in college, university, and law school, what was now being taught seemed sophomoric and illogical.

To my great dismay, future counselors were being instructed that a person’s race was perhaps their most significant characteristic. That we should always introduce ourselves to others by including the third person pronouns we expect them to use for us. That we should measure ourselves against our clients by listing our demographic categories and determining who is more privileged and who is more marginalized. That children can be “born transgender,” and that the word “woman” might be offensive.

What’s more, around this time the whole world became panic stricken over a virus and in a burst of authoritarianism, public officials everywhere decided to rewrite our basic social scripts. These new policies were dehumanizing, cutting people off from human connection, stripping them of autonomy, and treating them like mere viral vectors. People lost jobs and businesses closed; friends and family fell apart, divided about what was happening and what it meant; and a generation of kids migrated from classrooms and playgrounds to screens.

As a life-long self-professed liberal, I watched as the political left became a gross caricature of itself in its relentless promotion of identity politics and medical tyranny. I looked to the political right and found some people making more sense than I had previously given them credit for- but although my views have shifted away from the left, I don’t always align with conservatives, either. Instead, I find myself in the center- which is a “radical” place to be in these strange times.

Despite my rejection of mainstream trends in mental health practice and counselor education, I have remained committed to working with individuals and families in a support capacity. In the fall of 2021 I opened a private coaching/consulting practice that is informed by my education, counseling skills, life experiences, passion for natural health, and my understanding that we are each a whole and unique person, not divisible into “identity” categories or political parties, nor into mind and body. Each of us is an idiosyncratic being on our own journey through life, and we deserve to be seen for who we really are by those who care for us.

So with all that said, I am not offering psychotherapy, clinical mental health treatment, or psychiatric diagnosis. I also don’t claim to have all the answers. But what I can offer if you choose to become my client is my genuine interest, an authentic relationship, and my undivided attention as we explore your thoughts, feelings, experiences, and goals together.