Adrian Belmes (he/him)

Gender formation is a lifelong journey, and exploring who you are outside a cisnormative mold can be deeply personal and complex. My approach is non-assumptive: I’m not here to tell you who you are or where your exploration should lead. As a transgender therapist, I bring both specialized training and lived experience to creating a space where you don’t have to constantly explain yourself. Together, we can deepen self-understanding, integrate your experiences, and move toward an authentic you.

Queer-affirming therapy means you shouldn’t have to spend your sessions translating your life or defending the ways you love, identify, or belong. My approach honors the complexity of queer experience without assuming there is one “right” way to be LGBTQIA+. I offer shared cultural understanding alongside curiosity about what your experience uniquely means to you. Our work makes room for identity without reducing you to it, so we can get to the heart of what actually brought you to therapy.

I approach burnout not as a personal failure, but as a meaningful response to circumstances that have asked too much of you for too long. Rather than helping you become productive enough to return to the same unsustainable cycle, we explore what your exhaustion is trying to tell you. Recovery means creating a life that is workable, not simply becoming better at enduring. It's about learning what you need, honoring what you can give, and creating a life in which your humanity matters.

Gender formation is a lifelong journey, and exploring who you are outside a cisnormative mold can be deeply personal and complex. My approach is non-assumptive: I’m not here to tell you who you are or where your exploration should lead. As a transgender therapist, I bring both specialized training and lived experience to creating a space where you don’t have to constantly explain yourself. Together, we can deepen self-understanding, integrate your experiences, and move toward an authentic you.

Trauma lives not only in our stories, but in the ways our bodies learned to survive. Somatic work invites us to notice what happens beneath words, in the meaning-making that happens through our nervous systems. By learning to approach your body's signals with curiosity rather than fear or judgment, we can begin integrating experiences that once felt fragmented or overwhelming.

IFS begins with curiosity toward the different parts of ourselves rather than trying to silence them. Even the parts of ourselves we dislike most often developed for understandable reasons. Rather than deciding which part represents the “real” you, we make room for the complexity of your internal world. As we understand what your parts have been protecting, they can begin to loosen old roles, allowing you greater freedom to respond to the present rather than continually surviving the past.

Sometimes we understand our patterns and still cannot seem to change them. Rather than treating symptoms as isolated problems, I want to understand what they mean within the larger context of your life. I am not an authority interpreting you from a distance, but another person working alongside you to become curious about your experience. Insight is not the endpoint but the start of a deeper process of integration. If you know where you have been, you can better see where you can go.

IFS begins with curiosity toward the different parts of ourselves rather than trying to silence them. Even the parts of ourselves we dislike most often developed for understandable reasons. Rather than deciding which part represents the “real” you, we make room for the complexity of your internal world. As we understand what your parts have been protecting, they can begin to loosen old roles, allowing you greater freedom to respond to the present rather than continually surviving the past.