Rene, LSWAIC, MSW, MeD
Hi, I’m Rene and I use they/them pronouns. My primary focus is with children and teens experiencing social-emotional challenges related to regulation or long-term stress. I practice with an attachment-based approach that centers healing as an ingrained process that grows through trust and connection—connection to others, to ourselves, and to our surroundings. I understand that even our most challenging ways of navigating the world are workable starting points that can be supported and shifted toward greater ease in ourselves and our relationships. I especially love to connect with people of all ages whose ways of thinking, feeling, or relating don’t fit neatly into conventional therapy, and I bring particular experience with queer and trans folks.
My background is rooted in crisis and trauma work with children, adolescents, and adults across schools, hospitals, residential programs, and community settings. My approach blends practical support with experiential and creative methods. I draw from Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) and arts-based work; Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Structural Dissociation; narrative and psychodynamic frameworks; and body + emotion-based models like Somatic Experiencing and AEDP that work with how we process difficult emotions—both verbally and nonverbally—in real time.
Playfulness is one of my most reliable tools. Our deepest struggles are serious, but that doesn’t need to keep us from enjoying the process! With younger kids, play-based therapy supports communication, safety, and self-regulation. With adults or more conceptually oriented thinkers, play tends to show up through personal and cultural stories, and what I think of as information play—sharing ideas and interests, which can include psychoeducation, or, in a borrowed favorite phrase, stimming the sense-making.
Specialities:
Attachment disruptions
Anger and aggression in children and adolescents
PDA and neurodivergence
OCD and intrusive patterns
DID/OSDD and multiplicity
Religious ruptures
Collaborative art and play with groups of all ages
I’m Best For People Who:
communicate through humor, detachment, or intensity
have found therapy to be too neat, too slow, or not built for their shape of mind
prefer experiential work over directive or manualized approaches
are queer, trans, curious, or otherwise questioning prescriptive social models
Supervision: Practicing under the supervision of Mackenzie Dunham, LICSW
Session Types: In-Person and Telehealth Sessions
Insurance and Rates
Sliding Scale Info: case by case
Insurance Nathan takes: Aetna, CHPW, Cigna, Coordinated Care, Kaiser, Moda, Molina, Premera, Providence PPO, Optum, Regence BCBS, RGA, UMR, UnitedHealth Care (commercial -not medicaid)
