Makenzie Brookes, LMSW
SHE/HER
I offer a trauma-informed, culturally humble, radically inclusive, and tender space to investigate your feelings and your needs. (I also understand you might not always know exactly how you feel or what you need.) If you’re interested and when you’re ready, we can work together to co-create a set of relational and somatic tools that you can forever use to notice and enhance what feels good, and notice and regulate what feels overwhelming. I believe we must feel to grow. I listen closely, I observe wisely, and I respect you and your desires for your life. I believe that a positive therapeutic relationship built on non-judgmental safety and trust can be utterly transformative. I am a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW) and a LGBTQIA+, kink, and ENM/Poly informed therapist. I offer 50-minute in-person or virtual sessions.
The duality of freedom and connection is at the core of my work. I believe we all want freedom: the freedom to be safe, individual, and strong; to fulfill one’s needs and one’s needs alone; and to shine brightly and proudly. We also want connection: the connection that nourishes, inspires, validates, and calms; connection that literally sparks our brains and keeps us going. I want to help you define and pursue freedom, connection, and meaning.
I use a collaborative, relational approach to identify and re-write problematic stories and harmful relationship scripts rooted in oppressive social norms. I provide the sex education few of us got as young people and a new vocabulary of pleasure. Although relationship therapy is traditionally focused on romantic and sexual relationships, a multitude of relationships make up our lives and they are all up for grabs in our work together.
Collectively we can explore – and remove – the barriers preventing you from experiencing the pleasure, happiness, and healing every single person deserves.
What survival strategies have you developed that have kept you safe but are getting in your way now, keeping you from feeling free or connected? How are you showing up for yourself and for others – as friend, lover, kin, partner, parent? What negative patterns keep repeating themselves? What role does pleasure, and not just sexual pleasure, play in your life?
I hold an MSW from Widener University, with a clinical focus on trauma and sex therapy. My path to this work has been circuitous; after nearly 20 years of helping refugees start new lives in the United States through international and domestic work, I expanded my focus to include human sexuality and relationships and started a second career. I bring my personal and professional life experience to my therapeutic work and am indebted to the thousands of refugees who continue to welcome me into their homes and whose resilience humbles me every day. Prior to getting my New York clinical license and joining Wise Therapy, I was licensed in Massachusetts and worked as a community organizer, community mental health practitioner, and sex therapist for SHIP (Sexual Health Includes Pleasure). I am a member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators and Therapists (AASECT) and am completing advanced sex therapy training to become an AASECT certified sex therapist (CST). I identify as a white, queer, cis woman.