Chris Araujo-Helms (she/her)

I work with clients navigating queer or polyamorous identity, coming out, and relationships that don't always make space for the whole truth of you. That can mean family that pulled away or community you had to leave. As a queer-identified therapist with a spiritually-informed approach, I hold space for faith, culture, and identity even when they're in tension. My goal is integration, not explanation, so you get to show up more whole in your life.

I work with grief in every form: the death of someone you loved, and the slower loss of people who couldn't hold the whole truth of you, family that pulled away, friendships that shifted, community you had to leave. That grief often goes unnamed since the person is still alive. Using attachment-informed, IFS-based care, I help you understand how loss has shaped you, and move toward a life where you don't have to hide who you are.

When relationships don't make space for your whole truth, connection can start to feel unsafe or exhausting. I help you understand the parts of yourself shaped by past and present experiences, using attachment-informed, culturally responsive care, so you can build relationships and a life where you get to show up whole.

Your culture, faith, race, and identity shape how you experience grief, relationships, and belonging, and they belong in the therapy room, not outside it. I don't ask you to set those parts of yourself aside to be understood. This is especially true when culture, faith, and identity are in tension with each other, which is common for clients navigating coming out, shifting beliefs, or relationships that exist outside what their community expected.

Relational therapy holds that healing happens through connection, including the connection built in this room. We'll look at how your past and current relationships have shaped your sense of self and trust in others, especially where those relationships couldn't hold the whole truth of you. Rather than working through this alone, we use the therapeutic relationship itself as a model for what safe, honest connection can feel like.

I use Internal Family Systems to help you understand the different parts of yourself, especially the parts that learned to hide, perform, or stay small in order to be accepted. Instead of treating those parts as problems to fix, we work to understand what they've been protecting you from. This approach is especially useful for grief and identity work, where so much of what we carry doesn't have a single, simple name. The goal is integration, not elimination.