Franklin Co

Hi, I’m Franklin! My practice is welcome to adolescents and adults from all backgrounds, with a particular focus on serving the multiracial, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ communities. I aim to provide my clients with a nonjudgmental space that validates struggle, normalizes emotions, and fosters resilience.

Approach

In my practice, I use a relational and systemic lens to understand my clients’ problems. The relationships and cultures we occupy are significant factors that I consider as we explore your concerns and collaborate on solutions. My approach aims to neutralize imbalances in power between me and my clients based on our social locations (e.g., age, race, gender, sexual and affectional orientation, etc.). These identities are integral to our experiences in life, informing the values we hold, the beliefs we endorse, the privileges that benefit us, and the oppression we endure. I will work toward understanding the world as you see and live in it as we share and transfer the roles of expert, teacher, and healer.

My practice is based in relational cultural theory (RCT), an approach with foundations in psychodynamic, multicultural, and feminist theories; and I incorporate interventions from additional modalities, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and narrative therapy.

Experience

I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in psychology and child development from the University of Texas at Dallas before pursuing my master’s degree in professional mental health counseling at Lewis & Clark Graduate School. My career has spanned across fields along the relational spectrum, including schools, special education, summer day camps, supervised parent-child visitations, and a state supported living center for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

I have worked with mental health challenges including anxiety, OCD, depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, and disordered eating. In sessions, my clients and I have worked together on issues related to self-worth, abuse and neglect, financial stress, self-harm, suicidality, religious and racial trauma, transphobia, substance use, executive dysfunction, and interpersonal violence.

About Me

I am a Texas native born to an immigrant Chinese father from the Philippines and a white mother from a small coal mining town in rural Appalachia. When I’m not working, some of my favorite hobbies include being dog dad to my forever puppy, S’mores; singing in the car and at karaoke; climbing and yoga; watching movies (especially horror!); innovating new recipes in the kitchen; trying new restaurants; and traveling with friends.