Alissa Swenson, Clincial Director, LCSW
Alissa is a dedicated and compassionate therapist with a deep passion for helping others heal and grow. She has always been drawn to supporting individuals as they work through trauma, guiding them toward rediscovering their identity and building confidence in who they truly are.
Alissa specializes in trauma, including religious trauma, complex PTSD, generational trauma, and abuse. She also has extensive experience supporting individuals through faith transitions and the many complexities that can arise—such as shame, sexual shame, and navigating challenging family dynamics. Her work is also centered around women’s issues and providing affirming care for the LGBTQIA+ community.
With a warm and empathetic approach, Alissa strives to help clients find inner serenity, reclaim their identity, and foster healing within themselves and their relationships. She is especially passionate about helping families improve communication and build stronger, more supportive connections.
Alissa understands how difficult it can be to seek help, and she honors the courage it takes to take that first step. She is here to walk alongside you on your healing journey, offering a space for open, honest, and collaborative dialogue as you navigate your unique life story.
Philosophy
My story
Alissa’s journey into therapy began with a deep desire to advocate for her friends and family members who struggled with mental health challenges and suicidal thoughts. Inspired by her two siblings in the LGBTQIA+ community—whose courage to live authentically in the face of societal pressures deeply moved her—Alissa felt called to help others discover and embrace their true selves.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Utah State University, where she developed a passion for helping people communicate openly and build meaningful, harmonious relationships. Alissa then went on to complete her Master’s in Clinical Social Work at Brigham Young University.
Her professional experience spans residential, inpatient, and outpatient settings, all of which shaped her holistic and compassionate approach to care. Eventually, Alissa found her true calling in private practice, where she cherishes the opportunity to form deep, lasting connections and be part of her clients’ beautiful journeys toward healing.
Outside of her work, Alissa is married and a proud mom to a son they both adore, along with two beloved dogs they consider their fur babies. She finds joy in spending time with her family—whether hiking, camping, boating, or simply playing games around the kitchen table.
Alissa’s Specalities
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Our lives are based upon our lived experiences and how they impact us in different ways. When those experiences are rooted in deep trauma, or grief it can impact our lives in complex and emotional ways that may be hard to deal with.
Alissa Strives to help you handle these complex emotions through using a variety of different modalities such as, IFS, EMDR, Mindfulness, and experiential therapy. Alissa uses a holistic framework to help clients listen to their mind body and spirit and give them a personalized healing experience.
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Growing up feeling as if you are different from society for being who you are, can be an emotionally trying experience. It can change the way you view yourself and make you feel as though you are different. Which is not the case.
Alissa hopes to be able to help bridge the gap between your self- and societal identity by creating a supportive space for you to talk about the complexities of identifying as LGBTQIA. Alissa aims to help you find and become confident in your own self-identity, and to help you find common ground between your identity and your family/societies ideals.
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Transitioning from a culture that you have built your life around can be a truly shattering and traumatic experience. It is challenging to try and balance your new morals with the thoughts and beliefs you were taught.
Alissa understands this challenge as she has gone through her own faith transition. She understands how complex deconstructing your values and creating new ones can be. She wants to help ease this transition by helping you work through your belief system to find yourself again.
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Being a woman in this day and age comes with its many struggles and difficulties such as navigating being a mother, single parenting, pre-natal and post-partum struggles, domestic violence and more.
Alissa will help you navigate these struggles by offering a safe space to talk about these issues and work through any trauma associated with them.
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Parenting is hard. Learning to take care of another human being, let alone, working them into you and your partner's lives is hard.
Alissa strives to help you work through the different stressors of parenting associated with each developmental phase. She will achieve this by helping parents communicate and blend parenting styles. She also helps couples work through any shame or guilt that may come.
