Meet AJ

AJ Johnson, AMFT

CLINICAL THERAPIST
Pronouns: they/them

Clinical Expertise & Special Interest:

• Queer, trans, and gender expansive teenagers and adults 

• BIPOC, multi-racial and folks from diasporic lineages

• Alcohol & Other Drug use Neurodivergent, disabled and chronically ill folks

• Former gifted kids/burnt out perfectionists/those in high-performance roles

• Eldest daughters and other folks socialized into caretaking and fawning responses

• Healers, therapists, care providers, anyone holding space for others 

• Athletes, and ex-athletes, as well as anyone wanting to tend to their relationships with their bodies, with food and/or with exercise

• Cross-neurotype couples/constellations

• Anyone with big feels who were ever told they were too much, too sensitive or too emotional 

Some of what we might explore together includes:

• dimensions of identity and sense-of-self

• family-of-origin wounds and intergenerational trauma

• attachment trauma, interpersonal violence, relational harm

• anxiety, depression, PTSD, CPTSD

• neuronormativity, masking and unmasking

• experiences of microaggressions, discrimination and systemic harm

• unrelenting standards/imposter syndrome/over-functioning 

• community care and resilience practices to survive the demands of cisheteropatriarchy and racial capitalism while being a human person

• Couples Work & Codependency

What my clients say about working with me:

Clients would describe me as compassionate and deeply attuned — a therapist committed to co-creating safety and authentically showing up in a way that welcomes others to share their authentic selves too. They’ve told me I offer guidance that is both validating and stretching, creating space for real growth and reflection, because I’m not afraid to hold your hand while calling you into facing hard truths with a mix of warmth, straight talk, and humor that’s debatable at best. Clients also share that rather than providing answers as an expert, they experience me as inviting them to connect with the innate sense of agency they already possess and to access the networks of communal and intergenerational support that are always holding them.    

I genuinely consider healing to be a sacred process and it is the privilege of my life to walk alongside folks who decide, again and again, to lean into the courage and vulnerability that it asks of them. I have a deep sense of reverence for my clients, my teachers, our ancestors and all that is unseen which guides us along our journeys and I strive to offer myself in a way that meets the responsibilities I lovingly take up as a care worker. 

Off the clock: 

I fancy myself a Mary-Oliver impersonator, slowing down and losing myself in the intentional-paying-attention-to the wonder and magic and beauty of nature, letting myself be enchanted by the trees and the birds and the waves and the sunsets as a spiritual practice. I also really love to dance, poorly, and mostly out of sight of anyone else. And you can definitely find me in the middle of at least 3-4 books, a huge nerd really. But nothing beats the love and warmth I feel gathering with loved ones and laughing over shared food and stories.

Are you queer, trans, neurodivergent and/or BIPOC and finding yourself overwhelmed by life or the state of the world in a way that’s making it more difficult to do every day, human things?

Or maybe you’re noticing that you’re avoiding hard conversations, pulling away in your relationships or using scrolling or tv to numb out? For some of the folks I am supporting, they’ve been finding themselves more irritable and lashing out at the people they love most. And others tell me they’ve been falling into patterns of people-pleasing and are finding it more difficult to say no and set boundaries. Some cannot seem to stop worrying about the future. Some are finding it challenging just to get out of bed.

If any of this sounds familiar, you are not broken or wrong or bad, I promise.

My work is rooted in the belief that the things we are struggling with began as intelligent ways we adapted to traumatic relationships and oppressive environments that required us to think, feel, and behave in specific ways in order to survive. Trauma means that even in the present, our range of responses is narrowed to those rigid and inflexible strategies we learned in the past.

From my perspective, healing includes tending to the original wounds, developing the capacity to be with the intensity of our emotional experiences, and practicing new responses that are based on our values and goals, rather than continuing to be trapped in patterns of reactions that aren’t serving us.

Empowerment through trauma healing doesn’t mean we don’t have difficult experiences, but it includes expanding our sense of choice and agency to build a life beyond our wounds, focused on our strength, our joy and our liberation.

I am a neurodivergent, multi-racial, queer, trans non-binary clinician with lived and living experience of trauma and I bring both my professional training and personal healing journey into the room. I see myself as a fellow traveller on this human journey and honor you as the expert of your lived experience. My role may shift — sometimes witness, sometimes knowledge-sharer, sometimes guide — but it is always in service of your agency.

How I Can Help

Therapy • EMDR

Specialities

Anxiety • Depression • Self-Esteem • Trauma • BIPOC Women