Seeing Your LightCounseling PLLC

Services

Therapy for the intersections you live at

Specialised support for adoptees and adoption-affected families, people living with chronic illness, and individuals navigating a public life — in Chicago, Oak Park, and across Illinois via telemental health.

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Adoption & Identity

Counseling for Adoptees & Adoption-Affected Families

Who this is for

For Adoptees

Adoption is a lifelong experience — not a one-time event. As an adoptee, you may find yourself navigating questions about identity, belonging, family, and relationships that don't have easy answers or no answers at all, and these resurface at unexpected moments throughout your life. You might be struggling with how adoption has shaped your sense of self, your relationships, and your mental health. You might be dealing with the complexities of reunion, or the overwhelming difficulties of not knowing where to begin. You might simply want a space where you don't have to explain the basics or deal with common misconceptions. At Seeing Your Light Counseling, you don't. This is a space that understands adoption from the inside out: the losses, the questions, the hopes, and the challenges of integrating grief with gratitude.

For Birth Parents

Placing a child for adoption is one of the most profound decisions a person can make (or may be forced into), yet it is one of the least talked about experiences. The doubts, the grief, the love, the ongoing questions about your child's life, the complicated feelings that come with reunion or the absence of it — these deserve support from someone with a deep understanding of the complexity and endurance of this type of pain. Whether your loss was recent or decades ago, whether you're in contact with your child or not, whether you feel at peace or still carry significant pain and conflict — there is space here for all of it without judgment. You don't have to justify your decision or minimize what you've been through to be welcome here. This is a space where you are enough no matter where you're at or what you've been through.

For Adoptive Families

Adoptive parenting brings unique joys and unique challenges, but many parenting resources don't address the impact of your specific circumstances and post-adoption support from agencies is often not sufficient — or your kids are adults now but some questions or conversations are only surfacing now. You may be navigating questions about identity and birth family, being a bi-racial family, working through attachment challenges, or trying to understand how adoption has shaped you and your family's dynamics in ways you didn't anticipate. Your love, care, best of intentions, and hard work are a given, but sometimes you may doubt yourself and wonder whether it is enough? This is a space where you can explore those questions honestly in all their complexities. It is a space where you can gain your own insights with the support of someone who has been trained in working with all parts of the adoption constellation.

02

Chronic Illness

Counseling for Chronic Illness & Caregivers

Living with, or taking care of someone with a chronic health condition may mean navigating losses, stigma, medical systems, disability, and the challenge of building a meaningful life within new limitations. This is a space where the complex reality of those experiences is acknowledged and we explore and enhance what makes this life worth living for you. If you're a caretaker and want to keep supporting others, this may be the only space where your needs will be the focus so you can keep being there for others.

For people living with chronic illness

Living with Long Covid, ME/CFS, or other chronic conditions means navigating a world that often doesn't believe you, doesn't support you, and rarely understands what you're actually going through. The losses are real and many: your former self, your plans, your relationships, your sense of what your life was supposed to look like. Therapy here isn't about toxic positivity or pushing through. It's about building a life that is genuinely meaningful within the reality you're living in. It is a space where the full complexity of your reality is acknowledged, not minimized, and where new possibilities that can truly work for you can be explored based on what is most important to you.

For caretakers

Caring for someone with a chronic illness is a special kind of invisible labor. You may have watched someone you love lose capacities, plans, and pieces of themselves — and found yourself quietly losing pieces of yourself too. The grief is real, even when your loved one is still here. The isolation is real, even when you're surrounded by people who care. You may be navigating a profound shift in your relationships, your identity, and your sense of what your life was supposed to look like. You may feel guilty for struggling when you're not the one who is sick. You may have put your own needs so far on the back burner that you're completely out of touch with your own needs. This is a space where your experience matters and your needs will be the focus so you can be there for others as you choose to AND live your life.

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Public Life & Advocacy

Counseling for Advocates & Public Figures

Being visible in the public for a cause or any reason, chosen or not, comes with invisible challenges. This is a space where you can feel seen as a whole person with public-facing and private parts; a space where the private cost of public visibility is taken seriously, and how to navigate these spaces will be rooted in your values.

For public figures & advocates

Being visible to the public in a specific role, whether as an activist, advocate, public figure, or someone whose work has brought unexpected visibility, creates pressures that are unique and that nobody prepared you for. Defining and holding boundaries between your public narrative and your private self can become difficult. The expectations of others or self-imposed can weigh on you. There are costs and benefits of being seen in this way. This is a space where you can be a whole person, not a story. Where the parts of you that want to serve the greater good can be in a safe conversation with the parts of you that want to be private and protected.

Session formats

Support that meets you where you are

Fees & Insurance

This means sessions are currently not billed directly to insurance, but a superbill can be provided for clients who wish to seek out-of-network reimbursement from their insurance provider. Session fees can be discussed during the initial free consultation and a Good Faith Estimate listing all anticipated costs (see link to No Surprises Act Notice at the bottom of the page) will be provided to you prior to scheduling your official intake session. I am in-network with Original Medicare, BCBS of IL PPO & Blue Choice PPO, Blue High Performance (HPN), Blue Cross Community Health Plans (BCCHP), and Medicaid. To make therapy accessible, please contact me for self/private-pay, out-of-network superbills, and sliding fee scale options.

A few common questions

It’s okay to have questions

Do you accept insurance?

I am in-network with Original Medicare, BCBS of IL PPO & Blue Choice PPO, Blue High Performance, Blue Cross Community Health Plans, and Medicaid. I also offer self-pay, out-of-network superbills, and a sliding fee scale.

How do I know if we're a good fit?

That's exactly what the free 20-minute consultation is for. If it's not a fit, I'll do my best to point you toward someone who might be.

Do you offer telemental health?

Yes — secure, HIPAA-compliant telemental health sessions to clients anywhere in Illinois. In-person sessions available in Chicago and Oak Park.

How often will we meet?

Most clients start with weekly sessions. We'll talk about what cadence makes sense for you.

What if my question about chronic illness feels very medical?

Therapy won't replace your medical team. What I can offer is support for the psychological, emotional, and relational dimensions of living with illness — which are often the hardest parts to get help with.

Not sure which service is right for you?

Book a free 20-minute consultation — no commitment, no pressure.

Book a Free 20-Minute Call