Image Description: A blue-ish, grey stone wall rises and falls in a close up shot. The stone is covered in a vibrant, forrest green moss with small strands of dried grass, here and there. Images by Quinn Peck.
Choosing a therapist can be a trying process. There may be a list of priorities you are carrying in your mind as you search for the person who can hold this deeply intimate space with you. It is a high value of mine to be transparent about who I am as a person and a clinician, so that you can make informed choices that feel right for you, resulting in a therapeutic relationship that provides you the support that you deserve on your own terms.
The page below provides a lot of information! I know how much time and energy it can be to find the right therapist. My approach is to provide an abundance of information up front, so that you can make an informed choice about reaching out further. If there is a question you have about me that is not addressed below, please feel free to ask it by utilizing the contact page, or in our initial consultation. If I feel it is a question I can’t or don’t want to answer, I will always tell you why.
Below you will note that some words are followed by an asterisk(*). These words are defined at the bottom of this page, for anyone that may not find them familiar. Feel free to take in as much of the information below as you find helpful and leave the rest.
About Jadelynn St Dre (she/her/hers)
Image Description: A light-skinned, Latine cis woman with a femme presentation and short, black, curly hair is wearing a blue, long-sleeved flowered shirt and gold triangle earrings. She has a half-smile and looks into the camera as she sits in front of a green background, which is out of focus.
I decided to become a therapist so that I could better understand the ways that many people in the US access support and healing, and to discern for myself the ways in which these practices are helpful and, sometimes, hurtful. As a queer*, cis* femme*, biracial, Latine* person of white European and Indigenous descent, there have been times that therapy has felt inaccessible to me or to many of the people I care about. I entered into the field of mental health with the aim of dedicating myself to uplifting the needs of the people who are often not represented in the field or prioritized for care.
I graduated with a MA in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis on Expressive Art Therapies from the California Institute of Integral Studies in the Summer of 2014. My clinical internships were spent providing individual, group and family services at agencies that provide support to people impacted by intimate partner and sexual violence, such as GLIDE Memorial Church and La Casa de las Madres, both in San Francisco. Post-internship, I was the co-founder of an art-activism collective called DISCLOSE, which provided support to survivors of sexual assault through various means in a grassroots model. During this time, I continued to dedicate my work to the service of those impacted by sexual assault, intimate partner violence and human trafficking within the non-profit sector, most recently serving as the LGBTQIA+ Program Manager and Clinical Coordinator at BAWAR in Oakland, where I worked with survivors, as well as partners, family members and friends of people who had experienced sexual harm.
Since then, I have completed certification as an AASECT Sex Therapist, and have expanded my focus to include specialties around the intersections of trauma and sex, pleasure, intimacy and desire, as well as queer and/or trans fertility, gestation, birth and caregiving. In addition, I have joined the facilitation team of Ante Up! Professional Development, where I have the honor of co-facilitating anti-oppression workshops for sexuality professionals with Dr. Bianca Laureano. I have been a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz within the performance studies and feminist studies departments, respectively, and am currently adjunct faculty at Lesley University. In addition, I am a member of several professional organizations including CAMFT, AASECT, Gaylesta and Bay Area Open Minds.
In addition to my clinical work, I maintain a robust organizing practice within the anti-violence, housing justice and LGBTQIA2S+ liberation movements. I also continue my practice as an artist, focusing primarily on multidisciplinary, community collaborations that provide spaces of support and reflection for LGBTQIA2S+ and/ or mixed race/culture communities.
While I am currently based in Durham, NC, I continue clinical work and collaborations with my community in the Bay Area of California. I am a mama to two incredible little ones whom I lovingly tend to with my life partner, Leslie (they/them), and find joy and gratitude in the abundance of nature all around us on the land of the Shakori, Cheraw and Ocaneechi Band of the Saponi, which we currently occupy.
Specializations
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Currently, I work as an Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist in private practice, specializing in:
Trauma and C-PTSD
Sexual Assault
Intimate Partner Assault
Childhood Abuse
Intergenerational Trauma* Queer and Trans Gestation, Birth and Family Therapies
and
Sex Therapy,
including helping people learn to navigate and define boundaries, and to reclaim and explore pleasure, intimacy and desire.
In addition, I have experience working with:
Stress, Anxiety and Panic
Grief
Depression
Low Self-Esteem
Body Shame and Internalized Fatphobia
Life Transitions
My services are available to most everyone, and I have experience providing support to people of many genders, orientations, expressions, and abilities. I do, however, like to highlight my work with the following communities, for whom having an experienced, responsive provider is critical:
All Women
LGBTQIA2S+ Communities
Sex Workers
Kinky People/Relationships
Polyamorous or Consensually Non-monogamous People/Relationships
and
BIPOC*, especially Mixed/Multiracial Folk
Style
In my therapeutic work, I employ the use of Person-Centered, Narrative, and Expressive Arts therapies, through the lens of queer, feminist, multicultural and liberation psychologies, with a heavy bent toward social justice. I am happy to talk further about what these therapeutic orientations mean to me, if you’d like. My clients and colleagues describe my therapeutic style as engaged, warm, direct but attuned, highly attentive and intersectional.
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As a supplement to my professional experience and style, it may be important to you to know that I view my work as an active and impassioned advocate as inseparable from my work as a therapist.
My approach to working with trauma has a critical eye toward Western Psychotherapy and pathology. I believe that it is our fundamental right to be the architects of our own healing, supported and encouraged by responsive mental health providers who are dedicated to deconstructing imbalances of power, continual education and accountability. I work actively within the field, and within community as an organizer and artist, to assert this right for all of my clients.
Also, it feels personally important to underline that it is because of community care that I am able to do this work. I am a trauma survivor, experienced both in childhood and as an adult. I have been fortunate to work with practitioners and community members of many kinds over the years that have supported me to develop a deeper understanding of my experiences and their impacts. In addition, I have a phenomenal network of family (chosen and of origin), friends, comrades and colleagues who keep me grounded in this work. My career as a therapist and community advocate is a way of paying it forward, seeking to make the empathic, attuned and trustworthy care you are entitled to more available and accessible.
* Queer: A reclaimed umbrella term for people whose sexual orientation and/or gender identity are not heterosexual and/or cisgender.
* Latine: A gender affirming term that describes a person who originates from or has ancestry originating from Latin American countries.
* Cis: A shortening for ‘cisgender’, which is someone whose gender identity corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth.
* Femme: A word that describes a gender expression (distinct from gender identity – check out the Gender Unicorn from TSER here for more explanation!) which specifically references queer femininity.
* Intergenerational Trauma: Describes the ways in which the experiences and impacts of trauma are passed on through generations, often via the family of origin.
*BIPOC: Black, Indigenous and People of Color
Image Description: A blue-ish, grey stone wall rises and falls in a close up shot. The stone is covered in a vibrant, forrest green moss with small strands of dried grass, here and there.