Heather Swaney

I help people who are struggling and need someone to walk with them while they figure life out. My practice is Ubuntu Counseling, on East Broadway in downtown Eugene, and I see children from age four, teenagers, adults, seniors, couples and families.

Thirty years got me here, and most of it happened outside a private office. I have worked as a behavioral interventionist, a case manager for youth with severe emotional disabilities, a child protection social worker, a school counselor, a foster parent, and a therapist on a locked adolescent residential unit. I have advocated for autistic people in schools, in independent living and in vocational settings, often in rooms where nobody else was speaking up. That range is the reason I am hard to shock and slow to judge. I know how schools actually respond, how paperwork actually moves, and how much energy it takes to keep asking for help.

The practice is named for something I heard in Alaska, back when I was working with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Visiting speakers from Africa talked about Ubuntu: we are interconnected, I am because we are. It landed because some of my closest friends were people with disabilities, family I was not born into. The name is a promise about the room. You can come as you are. No changes needed.

What I work with

Autism and ADHD are a large part of my practice, across the whole lifespan. Autistic therapy does not look like other therapy, and it should not. Sessions can be quiet or loud, still or moving, spoken or written. Stimming is welcome, eye contact is optional, and the goal is never to make anyone appear less autistic. It is to make life more workable: regulation, transitions, sensory load, self-advocacy, burnout, and the exhaustion of masking.

I also work with trauma and PTSD, including childhood and developmental trauma and foster or system-involved histories. Anxiety, particularly social anxiety and phobia, school refusal, and the 3 a.m. spiral. Grief and loss, including the losses people are told not to grieve. Life transitions. Couples and families, which often means a neurodivergent child, a blended household, or a teenager whose behavior has become the family's whole weather system. I am LGBTQIA+ affirming, which in practice means your identity is context here rather than the problem you came in about.

How I work

I am trained in CBT, DBT, internal family systems, ACT, mindfulness-based and somatic work, alongside narrative, attachment-based, emotionally focused, person-centered, solution-focused and trauma-focused approaches. Which of those shows up depends on you, not on a manual. I do not always get to choose what works. You choose what works and what you allow to work.

Nothing here runs to a schedule that isn't yours. My clients come in and they want to talk about the color pink. I'll talk about the color pink. All session. Maybe that conversation about the color pink opened a door to dealing with the trauma they had in their childhood.

Sometimes meeting you where you are means therapy on a walk in a park. Sometimes it means meeting someone so they can actually get to a doctor's appointment.

For parents

Every behavior your child is showing you is an active communication. Their little bodies can't always have the words. So when they're behaving some way, they're telling you something. Now it's your turn to figure out what that is. You are welcome in the work, and sometimes the most useful hour of the week is the one without your child in the room.

Some practical honesty

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, not a psychologist, and I am licensed in Oregon only, so I can work with you when you are located in Oregon. I do not assess or diagnose autism or ADHD, and I do not treat personality disorders. If what you need sits outside what I do, I will say so early and try to point you somewhere better. That is a useful outcome of a first conversation, not a failure.

Ubuntu Counseling is private pay. I do not bill insurance and I do not accept the Oregon Health Plan. I provide superbills you can submit to your plan for out-of-network reimbursement, though whether a plan reimburses is between you and your insurer. Individual sessions are $180, couples and family sessions are $250, and there are a limited number of reduced-fee spots starting at $130. Cost is a fair thing to raise on the first call, and I would rather talk about it early than have it become a quiet reason to stop coming.

Sessions happen in person in Eugene or by telehealth anywhere in Oregon, Wednesday through Friday and on Saturdays. Start with a free 30-minute call. You tell me roughly what is going on, I tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it, and nothing is owed either way.