I am a Certified Forest Therapy guide with a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Agnes Scott College.  I work with adolescents and adults utilizing Synergetic Play Therapy,  Internal Family Systems, and nature-based interventions informed by a relational-cultural lens.  I offer play and talk therapy on-site at Gaia, and forest therapy walks.  I have experience working with children and adults coping with generational trauma, anxiety, neurodivergence, depression, school refusal, and anger.

Before becoming a counselor, I was a producer for National Geographic, and I have always followed a thread of curiosity about liberation psychology and pedagogy.  I believe that when we nourish our connection to ourselves, each other, and the land, healing and growth are generative for the individual, family, and community. My background in living stories, liberatory practices, and forest therapy inform my work as a mental health clinician where I feel deeply privileged to witness children and their parents connect with their own truth, bodies, agency, joy, and relationship to each other.

I have a strong respect for the knowledge already embedded in our nervous systems, and the way we can heal through play and in guided relationship with other people and the environment.  Helping my clients understand how this happens, and being witness to the growth and empowerment of this self-awareness is why I do this work.

Leigh can be reached at leigh@gaiacounseling.com