Constellate Patchwork
Therapy & Consulting, LLC
virtual therapy by a queer Autistic for queer Autistics
to shine with united radiance
something composed of miscellaneous or incongruous parts
constellate patchwork:
I support folks of all ages who:
Are queer, gender expansive
Are Autistic
Experience the world with a dissociative mind after enduring chronic & physically inescapable relational trauma
MY THERAPEUTIC APPROACH IS . . . . .
TRAUMA-FOCUSED.
Many of my clients have experienced neglect and abuse since childhood. As a result, they experience:
High levels of dissociation
Chronic suicidal ideation
Disconnection from or ever-shifting sense of identity/self
ROOTED IN DISABILITY JUSTICE.
My clients are often multiply disabled and live with at least one chronic illness. Their mental health challenges are exacerbated by:
Living in an ableist cultural context
Complicated relationships with food and their bodies
Difficulties completing daily life tasks, often due to lack of accessible resources
Distrust of medical professionals
ANTI-OPPRESSIVE. Many of my clients have been extensively harmed by mental health professionals. In order not to replicate these patterns within the therapeutic relationship, my practice includes:
Regular check-ins with clients to receive feedback & co-collaborate in effectively tailoring the therapeutic space to meet the client’s needs
Continual evaluation of unexamined areas of own humility as well as pockets of knowledge for further investigation & discovery
Ongoing participation in continuing education classes
Professional consultation with other professionals whose values closely align with my own
My own personal weekly therapy
HOW WE GET TO WHERE YOU WANT TO GO:
Our work together might include exploring and challenging the way you experience yourself and your worth, especially if/when you don’t meet societal expectations or follow “the rules.”
It might also include the body (your body) and its need to move as an innate way of responding to and managing emotions that sometimes escape the spoken word. The work might also include using art or music to give shape, color, sound, and texture to feelings or experiences that challenge or resist meaning, and exist instead as a felt sense. (Some examples of the work that we might do together can be found here under the headings “Section I,” “Section II,” and “Section III.”) Our work is also likely to include discussions of various systems of oppression — specifically, the ones with the greatest impact on you.
And while we dip our toes into explorations of your sadnesses & griefs, your longings & lonelinesses, we will also celebrate all the ways in which you, in all of your resourcefulness, have kept yourself alive. When joy presents itself, we will witness it, notice its shape & color & sound, & give it a name. We will work together to build a blueprint for accessing & embodying that joy again & again.
And while the pathways we follow into magnifying your sense of embodiment will be unique from the folks occupying the sessions before & after you, this sometimes-messy work of change will always center your sense of trust and safety — especially the sense of trust and safety you experience in your relationship with yourself and your body. It is my promise to you that trust and safety with self and within the therapeutic relationship will guide the pace and direction of your therapy, where we will work together to avoid re-traumatization by limiting your exposure to “too much,” “too fast,” “too soon” in the therapy room.
WHAT A THERAPY SESSION WITH ME ENTAILS:
My current clients might tell you that a session with me is likely to include:
Mixed metaphors about subjects that I have a very shallow knowledge base about (e.g., large bodies of water, dams, sports that involve volleying of objects, math)
Pauses as I collect, separate, and express my thoughts or try to catch the tail-end of a question that my brain is chasing
The question: “What are you noticing?”
Inquiries about your feelings — where they live in your body, how you’d experience them if we gave them sensory components
Talk of what I’m noticing in myself in response to your thoughts & feelings
More than a handful of very bad puns (the cousins of the dad joke) that will come, with my full delight, at my own expense
Hit phrases & concepts from the 90s such as “long hair don’t care” & checking oneself before wrecking oneself
Upon request, appearances from my clowder of stray cats
The Therapy
Available to folks living in Pennsylvania & Virginia
Jess
Professional Self
Highlights from my professional resume include:
Master’s degree in Social Work (2020, California University of Pennsylvania)
Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy (2021)
Trained in EMDR (2022)
Licensed Clinical Social Worker credential (2023)
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Because of my love of the alphabet & adding letters after my professional name and my dedication to my lifelong special interest (psychology), I’m currently plugging away at at my Registered Expressive Arts Therapist credential and an Advanced Certificate in Dissociation Studies for EMDR Therapists.
My past work as a therapist includes school-based therapeutic social work across an elementary, middle, and high school in a rural setting; education, support, and advocacy in response to gender-based violence at the college level; short-term therapy for survivors of domestic violence; short-term therapy with college students; and intensive behavioral health support for children and their families in home, school, and community contexts.
Before becoming a therapist, I grew into my writing chops while earning a BFA in Creative Writing from Penn State Behrend, where my dogged sense of hope, love for lyrical storytelling, and radical marriage to the imagination took root. After college, I worked many jobs: as a caregiver employed by folks with various disabilities; as a manager of a group home; as a lead teacher at a preschool; and as an instructor of survival swimming lessons for kids and adults.
I’m happy to talk (at length) about the ways in which my past professional experiences laid the groundwork for the work that I do now — please ask!
Other Selves Across Space and Time
We grew up in the shade of pine tall pine trees in rural northwestern PA.
As a kid, I dissolved into other worlds through reading, writing poems in crayon by nightlight, climbing pine trees, splashing in large bodies of water, collecting white wishing stones, picking tiny sun-warmed strawberries from the farmer’s field across the road, & playing with imaginary friends alone.
I spent the greater portion of my adolescence on the internet, building personal websites, writing fanfiction (Hanson-Moffatt crossovers, to be embarrassingly specific), publishing my writing on websites like LiveJournal and Diaryland, and listening to the abundance of music I discovered through Napster and Limewire; but I also retreated often to the woods, where I photographed wildflowers, trespassed into fields, and daydreamed my way through the great loneliness I experienced.
I spent my late teens through my mid-thirties lost & fumbling as I tried to dampen, mute, and extinguish the cacophony of my ricocheting inner thoughts.
I survived a great deal. I survive it, still.
These days, I work diligently: to curate my houseplants into an indoor jungle; to collect a robust menagerie of stray cats; to explore & understand my inner landscape by toodling around with watercolor paints; to delight in my environment by lining up & color-organizing household objects & rearranging furniture; to experience mindful presence by photographing sunbeams filtering through cloud-cover; and to expand into a sense of safety & peace by laying on the floor under my galaxy light while listening to tunes that make my brain hum & sparkle.
My goals in life are:
Own a bathtub in which I can soak on a daily basis,
Keep & whisper to bees,
Grow a messy & abundant garden of patty pan squash, tiny strawberries, & symphonies of wildflowers.
My core values as a human center around safety, imagination, playfulness, creativity, joy, empowerment, and integrity.
Services, Rates & Insurances
Services:
Therapy: Individual, Family
Consultation
Gender-Affirming Surgery Letter Writing — FREE
Insurances Currently Paneled With:
Optum Behavioral Health
UPMC
Highmark
Aetna
Medicaid
Medicare
Self-Pay Rates:
Initial Session: $200 (60 minutes)
Individual Session: $150 (55-60 minutes)
Couples Session: $150 (55-60 minutes)
Family Session: $200 (55-60 minutes)
Consultation: $50/30 minutes
Cancellation Fee:
$75 for sessions canceled (1) with less than 24 hours’ notice or (2) with no notice
Questions to Ask Your Insurance:
Navigating insurance coverage can be a challenge. Deductible this, copay that, coinsurance yadda yadda….
To get a better understanding of your insurance’s mental health benefits, you can call the number located on the back of your insurance card & ask the following questions:
Do I have in-network mental/behavioral health benefits?
What is my in-network deductible?
Has any amount of my deductible been covered this year?
What is my copay amount?
Do I have out-of-network mental/behavioral health benefits?
Do I have an out-of-network deductible that has to be met first before I get reimbursed?
Has any amount of my deductible been covered this year?
What is my co-insurance amount?
What is the usual and customary rate covered by my insurance for outpatient psychotherapy (CPT code 90837)?
