Hope Gerdon Counseling
Counseling services dedicated to helping you pursue meaningful growth, identity exploration, and healing.
Let’s talk!
I’m Hope. I am a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and my goal is to provide a safe environment for you to understand yourself more fully, implement practical changes to support your mental health, and build a meaningful and fulfilling life.
“With every change, I took a step toward my own happiness, and I strengthened the muscles that would lift me out of the place where I thought myself to be stuck.”
― Mari Andrew, Am I There Yet?
Mission
My mission is to provide a safe place for you to explore your inner world, get curious about yourself, and begin implementing small and practical changes to live a more authentic and meaningful life.
Values
Authenticity
I do my best to show up authentically as a therapist, so that you, the client, are able build safety and trust to do the same. I believe that authenticity in relationship is the cornerstone of growth, healing, and meaningful change. I am not a “blank slate” kind of therapist. I will show up with my true feelings and reactions, while encouraging you to do the same.
Passion
My love and passion for meeting people where they are at, supporting them in healing and growth, and providing practical tools to help them succeed, is what fuels my work. My passion for what I do is what allows me to be the best therapist that I can be. I want to support you in finding and living out your passions to become the best you that you can be!
Creativity
Creativity is an essential component to meaningful therapy work. Creativity aids in navigating challenges from new perspectives instead of falling into old patterns. Creativity will help you to build resilience and learn to adapt to change, as well as offers new ways to explore the unknown. I strive to embrace creativity as I support your therapuetic journey, by practicing a willingness to adapt to your specific needs and find tools and strategies that work for your specific experience.
Beliefs
Inclusivity
I welcome people of all genders, races, ethnicities, sexual and neuro identities, and abilities. I am LGBTQIA+ and neurodiversity affirming, and strive to learn and expand my knowledge to best support these lived experiences. I acknowledge my privilege as a white, cis-gendered person, and recognize that I will not always understand each individual’s lived experience in the way that they do. I strive to seek understanding and education for myself to best serve people of all identities and backgrounds, while recognizing my own biases and limitations. I always welcome curious conversations and feedback from clients on how I can better support their needs.
Faith and Spirituality
I value clients bringing their own faith, values, beliefs and spiritual practices to therapy. Be it tarot, astrology, meditation, prayer, the Enneagram, or sacred texts that hold meaning to you, I want to hear about the ways you are learning about yourself, the world, and the Divine. I believe these to be powerful ways in which one can build a sense of personal strength, resilience, and meaning-making, that deserve space in the therapeutic journey. This being said, faith and spirituality do not have to be part of your personal therapy experience and I respect atheist and agnostic belief systems equally.
Politics
I believe that politics do have a place in therapy. We are shaped and impacted by systems and environmental factors that are not always in our control. I believe that meaningful change comes not only from changes on an individual level, but also on a larger systemic level. I welcome conversations around politics and social justice in therapy.