Professional Highlights:
I completed a BS in Psychology from BYU many years ago and graduated with an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Saybrook University in April of 2025. I am an Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor in Utah, working towards full licensure, expected in 2027. I am supervised by Dr. Marty Erickson, LMFT. For several years prior to beginning my master’s program, I was a Reiki master and life coach.
Specialties:
I love working with adults who want to see change in their lives, even when they do not see how that change can be accomplished. I have a particular fondness for working with young adults. Having inhabited many minoritized spaces in my life, I draw from a deep well of lived compassion and empathy when I interact with clients. Every session is a sacred space, and what is shared with me I feel honored to hear and hold.
I have worked professionally with many presenting concerns, amongst those being acute suicidal clients, those who have suffered intimate partner betrayal, and those in the LGBTQ+ space. While my work may draw from Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, somatic work, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Internal Family Systems, or others, my favorite mode of interacting with a client is simply shared humanness, where presence and deep listening come first before any sort of therapeutic modality or intervention.
In the fall, I will be pursuing a part time graduate certificate in the Psychology of Coercive Control (manipulation), and after that, I plan to attain another graduate degree in transpersonal psychology, or the ethical integration of spiritual practices into clinical use and personal life. I thoroughly believe most long-standing healing/recovery has an aspect that is mysterious and/or spiritual. My hope in working with clients is to not only assist them into functioning but walk with them while they step into their passions and life purpose.
Athina has immediate openings in Orem for in person and for teletherapy for anyone in Utah