Christina Harrison

Welcome

My primary goal in working in mental health is to put myself out of a job. Given that each of us intrinsically know what we need to heal and grow, my approach to psychotherapy is to couple your expertise of being you—your reality and lived experiences—with my skill set in order to collaboratively work towards achieving your goals. Rather than leading, I walk alongside you in our work together, refining the techniques that you bring with you to therapy, so that you can learn to become your own therapist. As a first-generation, queer, Filipinx-Jamaican American femme who grew up in a military family, I understand the importance of being seen in all of our intersecting identities, and the relief that comes when someone “just gets it”. Through a culturally-affirming and healing-centered stance, I utilize numerous therapeutic modalities to facilitate our relationship. My primary therapeutic approach is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which centers mindfulness; ACT allows us to foster compassion, bravery, and commitment to self in the service of living a full and enriched life, in spite of discomfort, pain, and challenges that arise whilst trying to live it. I have also been extensively trained and supervised in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Prolonged Exposure (PE), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAT/KAP). Additionally, I am a certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) clinical trainer. Most people come to the mental health field to help others heal and get healed themself. In addition to my own therapy, other ways I heal look like: recipe testing baked goods in my kitchen, convincing myself that there’s no such thing as “too many” plants and subsequently becoming overwhelmed when I get home and have to figure out where I can fit *another* plant, curled up on my couch watching anime and conspiracy theory documentaries, trying to figure out which planet conjuncts my eighth house, and (most likely on the ground, hurt laughing) re-learning how to roller-skate, which is much more challenging than I remember it being.

About

My primary goal in working in mental health is to put myself out of a job.

Top Specialties

I really enjoy supporting folx who are seeking support in: • Navigating Suicidality, Ideation, and Self-Harm Behaviors from an anti-carceral lens • Depression, Anxiety, Trauma (Acute, Complex, & Intergenerational) • Building and Navigating Relationships • Values Work • LGBTQIA+ Experiences • Multiethnic/Multiracial Identity • Neurodivergent, Gifted, or Twice-Exceptional folx (and the burnout that comes with it) • Toxic Work Environments & Burnout (aka Moral Injury) • First Responders, Healthcare Workers, Tech & Digital Safety Industry • Careworkers/Therapists/Social Workers who think they may have made a mistake choosing to work in this field

Other Areas of Focus

Therapy Types

In my elevator pitch to therapy and coaching clients, I explain that as someone who was trained in social welfare, I know that the work we do together/at the individual level is going to be most sustainable if the relationships, environments, and systems you exists in bolster and amplify the changes you seek to make in your life—or at the very least, do not continue to perpetuate the trauma that's made it challenging to get your wants and needs met. I believe that a fair majority of the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systemic struggles we navigate can stem all the way back (like, generations upon generations) to someone not being able to effectively get a want/need met, and instead did the best they could with what they had available to them. At the core of my practice, I center authentic relationship building, which creates safer and braver spaces to practice navigating generative conflict; to know that compromise doesn’t mean foregoing your needs but rather finding the kernel of shared hope and love and fostering it with right intention and right action (“right” as in the Eightfold Path, not “correct”); to know that even though relationships may be what caused harm in your lived experience, in relationships is also where we find healing; not knowing doesn’t mean a lack of knowledge but rather an invitation to dream and co-create; and lastly, when we focus on restorative relationships, it also includes relationship to Self, relationship to the collective, and relationship to ecosystems.