Trauma Therapist, Sex Therapist, and Couple / Relationship Counselor in Colorado

My counseling services are provided via Telehealth (online/video and via phone)–with no in-person appointments. I am licensed as a LPC to work with residents of Colorado only.

WORKING TOGETHER FROM A COLLABORATIVE, INQUISITIVE , AND ATTACHMENT-FOCUSED APPROACH, I CAN SUPPORT YOU WITH…

• Working with nervous system activation and de-activation in order to heal past trauma and access more ease, calm, and stability.

• Gaining deeper insight into patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that keep you feeling distressed, stuck, or disconnected in your life or relationships.

• Identifying and expressing needs, wants, desires, and boundaries to create better functioning and more fulfilling relationships.

Ray Lewey, MA, LPC (Clinical Director)

(he/him/his)

The underlying view of my work as a therapist is the belief that all humans have a natural impulse toward healing and growth. Our bodies, hearts, and minds are always seeking ways to make things better, ways to find relief. But challenging experiences in life can start to build up and get in the way of this process, creating an obstruction to that natural process of healing. Obstructions to healing and growth might be trauma, attachment or early relationship wounding, addiction, self-limiting beliefs, or other unconscious mental and emotional processes. But whatever it is, we find ourselves feeling stuck in certain behaviors, thought patterns, or emotions. We might even be able to see what would help, but somehow, we still can’t get ourselves out of the stuckness. This inability to change or to take action can create feelings of inadequacy, powerlessness, and despair. Having a therapist who can support you in pinpointing these patterns, making sense of where they come from, and beginning to tend to them with an attitude of warmth and respect is crucial for lasting and satisfying change.

As a therapist, my job is to help identify whatever is obstructing that movement toward change and healing and see how, together, we can get you back on track. Most often, the answer is seeing where our impulses, needs, emotions, and unconscious beliefs have gotten stuck in our bodies and nervous systems. Therefore, I have found that therapy works best when you can put your thoughts, emotions, impulses, and beliefs into words so we can begin to uncover unconscious patterns or experiences that negatively impact your life and/or relationships. My role in the therapeutic relationship is to create an environment that is free of judgment where you can access, express, and explore what is happening in your inner world. Once mental and emotional patterns can be recognized and safely brought into more conscious awareness, they can then be integrated into the body and nervous system to find more lasting and effective change, as well as better functioning relationships.

I strive to always maintain a curious and non-judgmental attitude. I have a lot of compassion for the countless ways that human beings suffer, as well as immense appreciation for all the creative strategies we come up with to cope with that suffering. I believe that anything we call dysfunctional actually began as something quite functional, something that for a time helped us stay safe, get our needs met, stay in connection, or cope with overwhelming experiences. I have a lot of respect for those parts of you, and hope to invite you into deeper respect and understanding for those parts as well. In both my clinical work and my personal life, I’ve found that when we disown aspects of our thoughts, behaviors, desires, and emotions to try to become who we think we should be, we end up feeling depressed, anxious, guilty, and/or ashamed. These emotions themselves may feel like they’re the source of all your problems, keeping you from feeling calm, confident, and content, but really they’re just feedback about the parts of ourselves that have been repressed, compartmentalized, or disowned. By re-membering those parts of ourselves, we can actually find the wholeness we so deeply long for.

Growing up as a closeted transgender person in the Midwest, much of my life I was terrified to acknowledge parts of who I was, what I felt, and what I wanted. Fear of familial, cultural, and religious rejection led to feelings of immense shame, guilt, depression, and anxiety. I learned to repress my emotions and impulses, and to feel ashamed about my sexuality and my desires. These patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving impacted my ability to show up authentically, courageously, and vulnerably to my life and my relationships. Much of my own healing path has been to reconnect with those wounded and shamed parts of myself, and to acknowledge the important role they played so that I could begin to move on and heal. Although the clients I work with range in their identities and what brings them to therapy, I can very often empathize with the feelings they share or the struggles they are facing in their lives or relationships.

I work with a variety of topics in individual therapy, ranging from challenging or traumatic early childhood and attachment experiences, PTSD, sexual issues, gender identity/gender dysphoria, anxiety, depression, addictive patterns, and relationship and/or co-dependency issues. My therapeutic approach blends together an insight-oriented psychodynamic approach (uncovering unconscious processes), an attachment-based approach (understanding the nervous system in the context of interpersonal relationships and early childhood experiences), and a somatic, or body-based, approach (freeing up physiological and emotional energy in the body while brining more balance to nervous system).

I also provide couples/relationship and family therapy for monogamous, consensually non-monogamous, and polyamorous partners of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Through cultivating more emotional understanding and empathy for oneself and one’s partner(s), while also being in connection to our own needs and wants, we can cultivate more satisfying and better functioning relationships. Through couples/relationship counseling, we can identify places where communication breaks down and create more effective ways to express hurts/resentments, unmet needs, wants, and desires. We can also address sexual or erotic issues in the relationship, such as desire discrepancy, dissatisfaction, or sexual dysfunction, and the impact that has on the relationship.

Additionally, I have extensive experience working around issues of gender, gender identity, and sexuality, particularly within the transgender community in both private practice and community-based organizations. I support transgender and non-binary clients in the process of exploration, coming out, navigating relationships, and socially/medically transitioning. I also work with cisgender men and women of various sexual orientations and relationship structures in exploring gender roles/dynamics, gender expression, and sexual expression. I believe that explorations of identity, sexuality, and gender are universal to all humans, regardless of gender identity and/or sexual orientation. I have extensively studied the topic of gender in order to understand how the biological, psychological, spiritual/energetic, and social aspects of gender influence the ways we relate to ourselves, our relationships, and the physical world around us. I gladly welcome and affirm clients of all gender identities and expressions in exploring what sex/sexuality, relationships, and gender mean to them.

Ray Lewey earned his Master of Arts in Counseling: Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC.0015943) in the state of Colorado. He is currently receiving training in Somatic Experiencing (SE) and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), with a year of training in The Hakomi Method and ongoing clinical supervision in psychodynamic psychotherapy. In addition to being a therapist, Ray is also a certified meditation instructor and adjunct faculty in the Graduate School of Psychology at Naropa University.

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