Pursuing her M.Phil.Ed in Professional Counseling
CFR MCT THERAPIST
OLIVIA STROKES
"Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge. They are chaotic, sometimes painful, sometimes contradictory, but they come from deep within us. And we must key into those feelings... This is how new visions begin."
— Audre Lorde
MEET OLIVIA:
Olivia Stokes is a second-year student at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, pursuing her M.Phil.Ed in Professional Counseling. She approaches the therapeutic space with a nonjudgmental air of honesty, accountability, humor, and care, taking a strengths-based and emotionally-focused approach to the counseling process. She has experience with Motivational Interviewing and is passionate about helping clients connect to a strong sense of self-efficacy. Olivia is also interested in somatic and emotional processing, believing that our bodies hold deep sources of information.
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Her areas of focus include women's mental health, relationship issues and challenges, grief, anxiety, depression, life transitions, peer relationships, and coping skills. An Advanced Psychology of Women course taught by Shamm Petros was especially impactful, opening her eyes to the collective capacity for joy through feminist theory. Reading Audre Lorde's essay Uses of the Erotic felt like a new lens clicking into place — a piece she still returns to for its exploration of our deepest capacity for feeling and connection to self.
Outside of work and study, Olivia is an amateur ceramicist who enjoys throwing on the wheel, drawn to the process of getting her hands dirty and surrendering to the unpredictability of clay. She collects cookbooks, filling their pages with sticky notes of ideas and inspiration, and has recently begun studying Appalachian history, music, and folklore.
Let’s Talk:
Want to get in touch with Olivia? Submit a request of give us a call now.