Queer Affirming, Neurodivergent Affirming Counseling Online in Rhode Island & Massachusetts
Inclusive care for LGBTQIA2S+
and neurodivergent folx
Your mental health deserves care that understands gender, sexuality, and neurotype as parts of your whole self. Our therapists provide queer-affirming and neurodivergent-affirming therapy online across Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Sessions center consent, autonomy, and cultural humility. We move at your pace and work with the systems that shape your life.
What We Offer
| Service Area | Description |
|---|---|
| Queer-affirming individual therapy | For LGBTQIA2S+ clients seeking support with identity, coming out, family dynamics, stress, grief, or day-to-day mental health. We honor your language, pronouns, and boundaries. |
| Neurodivergent-affirming therapy | For autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, dyslexic, and otherwise neurodivergent clients. We work with sensory needs, burnout, executive function, rejection sensitivity, and masking recovery. |
| Relationship and family support | Polyamory, kink, and chosen family welcome. We focus on communication, attachment needs, repair, and consent skills that fit your values and neurotype. |
| Minority stress and resilience care | Tools for navigating transphobia, homophobia, racism, fatphobia, ableism, and workplace or school bias. We name systemic harm so it is not placed back on you. |
| Identity exploration | Space to explore gender, orientation, culture, and neurodivergence without pathologizing or pressure to decide before you are ready. |
Each session centers autonomy, safety, and collaboration.
You choose what to share and how fast to move.
We adapt the work to your communication style, processing speed, and sensory capacity.
Our Approach
Queer and neurodivergent-affirming therapy at Phoenix Rising is not about fixing who you are. It is about building safety, choice, and connection in ways that match your body and brain. We understand that identity develops within families, communities, and histories. We hold all of those layers with care.
We draw from approaches such as:
Neurodivergent-affirming CBT and executive function supports that respect pacing, energy budgets, and real-life accommodations
Somatic and body-based regulation for sensory overload, shutdown, and burnout
Attachment and relational therapy for trust repair, communication, and boundaries across different neurotypes
Narrative and identity-focused work to unlearn shame and build self-definition
Mindfulness that is accessible with options for movement, stimming, art, and non-verbal processing
Psychoeducation on minority stress, masking, RSD, and sensory needs, grounded in anti-pathologizing and decolonial frameworks
We resist one-size-fits-all treatment. Your stims, your pacing, and your needs are welcome in the room.
Who We Support?
People come to us when they are:
Moving through gender transition, coming out, or exploring labels and language
Recovering from masking and autistic or ADHD burnout
Navigating RSD, anxiety, or depression that shows up in waves
Balancing cultural or family expectations with identity and relationships
Seeking poly, kink, or queer-competent relationship support
Wanting tools for sensory regulation, routines that stick, and self-advocacy
Looking for a therapist who will not pathologize stimming, special interests, or non-linear communication
You do not need the perfect words. We will meet you where you are.
Meet Our Therapists with Lived and Learned Expertise
Healing happens best when you feel seen and understood. Many of our clinicians bring lived experience and advanced training in supporting queer and neurodivergent communities. Our therapists are grounded in trauma-informed, queer-affirming, neurodivergent-affirming, and decolonial approaches to therapy, recognizing how identity, culture, and systemic forces shape mental health.
Each brings deep respect for your autonomy, lived experience, and the communities that shaped you.
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Ana Mena (She/Her)
Bilingual Trauma & Identity Therapist · Rhode Island & Georgia
Ana supports queer, neurodivergent, and immigrant clients navigating identity, belonging, and the intersections of culture and mental health. She works with ADHD, AuDHD, and dyslexic clients, helping them unlearn internalized shame, manage burnout, and find gentler ways to move through the world.
Ana offers bilingual care in English and Spanish, centering cultural wisdom and lived experience. She believes therapy should honor your language, community, and the systems that shaped you, not separate you from them.
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Merlin (He/Him)
Queer & Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapist · Rhode Island & Connecticut
Merlin supports queer, trans, and neurodivergent clients navigating identity, shame, and belonging. He works with autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, and creative minds learning to move beyond masking, perfectionism, or burnout, and toward self-trust and ease.
He is deeply aware of how systems, including colonization, gender norms, and ableism. shape how people learn to survive. Therapy with Merlin isn’t about solving or correcting, it’s about remembering the parts of you that already carry care, rest, and belonging.
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Seth (He/Him)
Queer, Trans & Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapist · Rhode Island & Georgia
Seth works with queer, trans, and neurodivergent clients who want to understand themselves beyond survival. He helps people explore identity, grief, and belonging while tending to the ways trauma and culture shape how we move through the world.
His sessions are spacious and grounded in curiosity, not performance. Drawing from psychodynamic therapy, mindfulness, and somatic awareness, Seth helps clients listen to what their bodies and histories are trying to say. .
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Sarah (She/Her)
Trauma, Dissociation & Queer-Affirming Therapist · Rhode Island
Sarah works with clients navigating trauma, dissociation, and complex inner worlds who want to feel safe in their bodies and connected in their lives again. As a queer therapist, she especially values creating affirming, body-aware spaces for LGBTQIA+ clients, neurodivergent individuals, and survivors of chronic stress or relational harm.
Her approach is grounded in attachment, somatic, and Internal Family Systems work, helping clients build safety, self-trust, and connection at a sustainable pace.
Meet More of Our Therapists
Many of our clinicians have lived experience and training in supporting neurodivergent and queer communities.
We know therapy works best when your communication style, sensory needs, and identity are understood. Our team includes therapists who honor neurodiversity and queerness as natural ways of being, not problems to solve.
During your free consultation, you can share what kind of care you need, someone familiar with autistic burnout, ADHD overwhelm, masking, or queer identity development.
We’ll connect you with a therapist who meets you where you are, offering care that respects your rhythm, language, and lived experience.