Chalay
Chalermkraivuth, LMSW

From birth, people need, want, and deserve love, care, safety, and meaning. In environments of generational trauma, violence, and oppression, however, these needs often go unfulfilled—whether or not our caregivers are making their best efforts—and we can move through life feeling a void: disconnected, abandoned, misunderstood, never loved quite right or quite well enough, ashamed for needing care and connection. Relationships can be painfully difficult, however much we want them, and we can question whether we deserve love, or how we'll get it.

As a therapeutic client, you may be new to seeking support, or you may have already spent a lot of time trying to figure out what's "wrong with you," or gotten stuck seeing little progress after years of talk therapy. Using somatic, relational, experiential, and behavioral approaches, I help clients move past intellectualization, deepen their understandings of themselves, and caringly reparent themselves. I aim to support clients in forming secure relationships with self—and, ensuing from there, with others and the world. I also help clients expand their toolbox of life skills, navigate their nervous systems, and contextualize their experiences within racial capitalism. Over time, I hope that our work together will help you experience love, care, safety, and meaning in the world.

My style is caring, direct, observant, and playful. I believe in the importance of holistic therapy that is co-created with each client. I also try to nurture a therapeutic relationship of unconditional care where mistakes and feedback are more than okay. Whatever comes up, we will approach it with compassion and curiosity, and we will hold the difficult things together.

I work with an abolitionist, anti-carceral, liberation-oriented politic. I also actively take Covid precautions and work with Covid cautious community. 

I received my Master of Social Work from Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.