Welcome, I am not accepting new clients at this time. I wish you well in finding support that works best for you.

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I partner with individuals and relationships, romantic or otherwise, experiencing both the challenges and joys of this gorgeous and tragic world. I partner with those who are seeking to thrive.

I am interested in you as a whole person, the communities you are a part of and the world you inhabit. I work with people of varying socioeconomic backgrounds, identities and relationship styles, I am poly, kink and LGBTQAI+ aware and affirming. I honor experiences, body sensations, feelings and thoughts as we explore their meaning and depths. With an Emotionally Focused Therapy and Relational-Cultural Therapy mindset, our interactions are made of curiosity, equity and empathy. Mindfulness and body (somatic) awareness are core to our explorations.

I have a therapeutic focus on illness, disability, chronic and new pain, grief and loss, trauma, vicarious trauma, oppression and justice, incarceration, substance use, (in)fertility, miscarriage, pregnancy, birth, traumatic or challenging births and the postpartum period, anxiety and depression.

I also appreciate working with people and relationships that are experiencing other emotions and situations not mentioned above, all with the hopes to further growth, compassion and connection.

I’d be honored to work alongside you to promote your versions of healthfulness, vulnerability, understanding and resiliency.

If you are interested to explore if this therapeutic relationship is for you, please inquire – see the ‘Contact and Logistics’ tab. 

I offer compassionate, engaged and transparent therapeutic services where we are all encouraged to contribute to and impact the course of therapy. As a part of your team, I will be present to consistently promote mindful understanding, reflection, worthiness, healing and thriving.

• I have a Masters in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh, have attended many conferences, workshops and trainings by Universities, foundations and from the brilliant people of my community. I find learning in a variety of environments, including especially from the individuals I work along side, to be key for my growth and am committed to this throughout my whole life.
• I have experience with trauma and resiliency. I have taken and given trainings on trauma, and have worked alongside survivors of intimate partner violence, unhoused peoples and many others who intimately know the impact of trauma. I have learned from  the Community Resilience Model, Peter Levin of Somatic Experiencing, Amber McZeal of Decolonizing the Psyche, and others about trauma in relation to the nervous system and how to work towards healing somatically.  I am also currently being trained to practice EMDR therapy. I work therapeutically with people who have experienced challenging and/or traumatic childbirth.
• As a certified birth doula, I have experience with the prenatal, pregnancy and the postpartum period, as well as assisting in healing challenging or traumatic births. I have a unique perspective as to how pregnancy, attempts at pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, new children and shifting family dynamics have effects on individuals, relationships and whole families. I have trained healthcare professionals and birth support people in supporting LGBTQAI+ people in the pregnancy, birth and during the postpartum period.
• I practice from the Relational Cultural Therapy model where empathy is central.
• I have training in Emotional Focused Therapy (EFT), a model for relationship therapy that embraces the impactful role of attachment.
• I am trained and practiced in conflict resolution and mediation, which offer insight into moments of conflict stress. I have particular interest in restorative and transformative justice.
• I have practiced therapy with individuals who are in jail. In that context, and within others, I have worked with people who experience impact from substance use while using a harm reductionist lens.
• I am interested in and understanding of illness, (chronic) pain and disability and the significance on a person and relationships. I am dedicated to promoting disability justice.
• I am supportive of healing and moving with grief and loss and all the many different forms it takes. I have been and continue to be a grief support group facilitator for people with different kinds of losses. I have been trained as a death doula and am very interested in compassionate death care.
• I am LGBTQIA+, kink, and polyamorous aware and affirming.
• I am rooted in social justice and community organizing. I have a focus on promoting racial justice, health care justice, disability justice and supporting those who are incarcerated. I work from an intersectional feminist approach.

CONTACT:

Please contact me by phone at 412.407.2476 or by email at connect@lizzieanderson.com.

LOCATION:

My office is located in 2840 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15222 – in the Strip District. There is visitor parking, bus access and a place to lock bikes. The building, my office and the bathrooms are accessible to those with mobility impairments and those in wheelchairs. If you make an appointment or plan to attend a group, I will share more information about the office.

PAYMENT:

I accept commercial UPMC  insurance, commercial Cigna Insurance and commercial Highmark/Blue Cross plans. Unfortunately, I cannot accept any Medicaid or Medicare at this time.

If you have another insurance, I can give you an out-of-network invoice that you can turn into your insurance to be reimbursed if your insurance is open to this. We can figure this out together.

I strive to be within reach for all. For those who need, I accept payment on a sliding scale. We will work out a payment plan upon your first visit. This plan can change as your life changes.

 

 

 

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COMPLAINTS:

If you wish to file a complaint about an ethical violation, you can do so through the PA state board: https://www.dos.pa.gov/Pages/File-a-Complaint.aspx, under “Professional Licensing Complaint.” My social work license number is: CW020728.

I am influenced by many. Friends, family, and teachers. bell hooks, Sue Johnson (EFT), Jane Addams, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Marie Brown, Brene Brown, James Hillman, Mia Mingus, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha; the early practitioners of Relational-Cultural Therapy (RCT) such as Judith Jordan and Jean Baker Miller; Peter Levine and somatic practitioners, including generative somatics; and many other smart and poised people of various disciplines: all supporters of love, care, vulnerability, strength and transformation.

I practice in a support net with connections and referrals to other important and credible healers: body workers, herbalists, energy healers, physical therapists, other mental health practitioners, and western medical doctors in this area.

This is a short list of resources I have found helpful and insightful, organized by topic. If you have resources that have been influential to your life and healing, please do share.

More immediate or crisis resources:

Allegheny County Re:Solve Crisis Network – 1.888.7YOU CAN (1.888.796.8226)

National Suicide Prevention Hotline – 1.800.273.TALK (1.800.273.8255)

Center for Victims Crisis line (Pittsburgh) – 1.866.644.2882

Pittsburgh Action Against Rape – 1.866.END.RAPE (1.866.363.7273)

Postpartum Support Warm-line (National) – 1.800.944.4PPD (1.800.944.4773)

LGBT National Hotline – 1.888.843.4564

Casa San José (Pittsburgh) – 412.343.3111

JFCS Refugee & Immigration (Pittsburgh) – 412.521.1737

Steel Smiling– black mental health care fund

Pittsburgh Mutual Aid – connection to resources, including funds

Be Well! – Pittsburgh health care guide

Pandemic:

How To Survive The end Of The World – podcast

WHO Mental Health and COVID-19 page

Advice For Dealing With Uncertainty, From People Who’ve Been There

Illness, disability, pain:

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha – podcast interview

Bitch Magazine – In Sickness series

Access Intimacy: The Missing Link – Mia Mingus

Spoons – Savannah Logsdon-Breakstone

You feel like shit – An Interaction Self-care guide

Grief and loss: How to honor our losses and not lose ourselves

The Artist’s Grief Deck

grief is gratitude, fear is intelligence, truth is strategic – Adrienne Maree Brown

Grief and Gratitude – Adrienne Maree Brown

grief is not linear and it is everywhere – Adrienne Maree Brown

lighting candles for orlando, and for all of us – Adrienne Maree Brown

the dark magic of grief – Rae Swersey

What Does it Mean to Hold Space – Heather Plett

Caitlin Doughty on Death Positivity and Rituals

There Are No Five Stages of Grief – ‘When my father died, I wanted desperately to know the timing of this thing. But grief doesn’t have a timeline.’ – Andy Kopsa

Angels By Your Side – tangible, local support while grieving

Attachment:

John Bowlby – the person who first spoke about attachment in the way we know it now. Plus some exploration of the ideas.

How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship – in relation to relationships, models, building.

Hold Me Tight– a book by Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

The Art of Wellbeing – on attachment theory

Your Attachment Style Influences the Success of Your Relationship

How to Change Your Attachment Style

EFT research

The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture – Nora Samaran

Sue Johnson: Changes in Relationship-Specific Romantic Attachment in EFT

Mind and body, Somatics:

The Politics of Trauma

Generative Somatics 

Somatic Experiencing

The Charming Science of Your Gut – video on how our gut and brain interact, including how our mental health is impacted

Trauma and resiliency:

The art of healing trauma – Heidi Hanson

15 Trauma Healing Goals  – Symbolic Representations

Window of Tolerance  – Laura Kerr

Trauma Stewardship – This is a book that I have found extremely helpful for people experiencing intensity, vicarious/secondary trauma

Radical mental healthcare:

Fireweed Collective – formally The Icarus Project

Mad In American

Culture, Healing justice and Activism:

California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) – with guests such as Angela Davis, Boots Riley, Lindy West, Francesca Ramsey, Chelsea Manning and many more

Healing Justice for the Black Lives Matter Movement – Just Healing

Medical Industrial Complex – Visual – Mia Mingus

The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture– Nora Samaran

Filling the Void – an interview with Bruce K. Alexander On How Our Culture Is Making Us Addicted

Pregnancy, birth and postpartum:

Darkside of Motherhood Therapeutic Group – Pittsburgh’s Post Traumatic Birth Therapeutic Group

Postpartum Pittsburgh  – Mental health resources for people who are pregnant or postpartum

Therapy:

A Therapist Walks into a Bar  – A podcast that brings therapy to you

Why We Feel Lonely and Odd– short animated video

On Soul, Character and Calling: A Conversation with James Hillman

How Therapy Works – a Deep Eddy Psychotherapy therapist writing about their practice, but with really general and helpful ideas

Parting the Clouds – Interview with psychiatrist Charles Raison on new treatments for depression

Conflict and trauma transformation:

Transforming Historical Harms – Coming to the Table

What isn’t transformative justice – Adrienne Maree Brown

Pods and Pod Mapping Worksheet – by the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective on relationships to turn towards for both support and responsibility

Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective Resources

Grief and loss support group — Open to all loss from death experiences
Generally the last Wednesday of the month from 6 pm- 7:30 pm. I will be skipping August 2020’s group. Please RSVP so I know who to expect and can provide the most up to date information, you can call or email me to do so. Currently, the group is happening virtually. There is a suggested donation of $5-25/group and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

For when we return to being in person, the group happens at 2840 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15222 – in the Strip District.  The building is physically accessible. There is street parking on 29th Street, right out front, and a lot behind the building, also on 29th Street. The 54, 86, 87, 88 and 91 buses come right to the building.