Frances De Los Santos
LCMHC
Working in the field for over 3 years, Frances (they/them/elle) is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor who earned their MEd in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from North Carolina State University. Prior to their work in counseling, they worked in the college access realm and provided middle- high school students opportunities for career exploration, goal setting, and more. Through this work, they integrated programs focused on self-care, self-exploration, and empowerment.
Born into a line of survivors, and existing as a neurodivergent Mexican American non-binary child of immigrants, they understand that our different identities greatly impact how we experience the world, the challenges we face, and the beliefs we form about ourselves. We learn how dangerous or safe the world is through our individual experiences, the experiences of our loved ones, and the experiences of our ancestors. We can move and adapt accordingly in order to survive, sometimes abandoning the softest parts of ourselves.
Frances takes an eclectic approach to therapy, helping folks strengthen their reconnection to their body and inner wisdom. Frances values providing safe containers to explore hurt and reconnect with parts of selves that have been abandoned for survival. They work to meet each client where they are, understanding that the therapeutic journey can be one filled with vulnerability, hesitation, and magic. Frances is guided by a mixture of person-centered, feminist, liberation, and gender-affirming approaches to create a space for clients' emotions without judgment, facilitate identity exploration, nurture self-awareness, and empower self-acceptance.
In addition to working with queer BIPOC, children of immigrants, and folks from mixed-status families, they work with adults who are neurodivergent, and/or who have experienced intergenerational/colonial trauma, childhood trauma, relationship challenges, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and other general life stressors. White supremacy and capitalism demand we give pieces of ourselves in order to survive and be worthy of care, but we are worthy because we exist. We are deserving of love, joy, safety, and dignity. You are deserving of a space that hears you, sees you, and embraces all of who you are, all of who you were, and all of who you will be.
In their free time, Frances enjoys spending time with family and friends, writing poems, solving escape rooms, walking in nature (with lots of bug spray), creating collages, and watercolor painting.
