Aliya Adenuga, MA, LPC, ACS – CEO & Clinician
Well, hello there! I am so happy you’re here! My name is Aliya, and I am a Licensed Professional Counselor with over 15 years of experience. I specialize in supporting women, girls and members from the LGBTQIA+ community who are high achieving creatives and public-facing professionals, and are struggling with anxiety, compulsive sexual behaviors and unhealthy relationship patterns. During challenging times, our careers can begin to intersect with high visibility stress, performance pressure, relationship challenges and trauma-induced compulsive “acting out” behaviors.
WHY MY WORK IS IMPORTANT:
Trauma survivors in high-visibility or high-performance roles can often experience:
- Internalized shame or trauma around body image, sexuality, and creative expression (especially in fields that reward objectification or performance)
- Use of sex, fantasy, relationships or romantic fixation to cope with performance anxiety, rejection wounds, poor self worth or inner emptiness
- Public over-functioning, while feeling emotionally dysregulated, lonely, or ashamed privately
- Struggles with boundaries and people-pleasing behaviors, especially when their career depends on being liked, seen, or desired
THE MIND/BODY CONNECTION:
Studies have extensively shown that, when we live through traumatic experiences and high achieving life stressors, we tend to disconnect the body from the mind as a means of functioning and coping. This results in us functioning on “auto-pilot” and increases the likelihood that we are also neglecting to care for our full selves. Because my therapeutic approach is holistic and eclectic, I believe in treating the whole person and I pull from a number of therapeutic modalities. What that means is that my work focuses on reconnecting the mind through the use of cognitive based interventions, and with the body through body based interventions. The modalities I use are:
- Music
- Dance/Body Movement Workshops
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (traditional talk therapy)
- IFS/Parts Work (exploring and integrating all of the different parts of you)
- Exposure and Response Prevention (exposure based therapy used to treat OCD)
- Attachment Style Therapy (identifying your attachment style and learning how it impacts your relationships)
- EMDR (re-processing traumatic memories through incorporation of bilateral eye and body movement)
- Meditative Practices
- Somatic Skill Building (learning about how trauma and stress is stored in your body and building skills around how to release it in a healthy way.)
MOVE WITH ME!
Being a professional and creative myself, I also like to offer group based wellness workshops and classes as an extension of the therapeutic work that I do with my clients. More specifically, I am a trained dancer and performer of West African and Afro-Latin social and folkloric dances, so my classes and workshops include these styles of dance to help promote recovery and body, mind and spirit re-integration. If this sounds like something you would like to incorporate in your therapeutic journey, be sure to click the Wellness Services tab to check our current class and workshop offerings.
WORK WITH ME!
I am also a CCE Approved Clinical Supervisor, and offer clinical supervision to clinicians who are still working towards independent licensure.
Click the button below to book your free consultation call!