About Ally Barnett, LCSW, CST
Serving clients in Burlington, Vermont.
My Commitment
I founded my practice because I care about people and love helping people connect to their inherent capacity for pleasure and wholeness. Through a social constructionist, person-centered, and humanist lens, I aim to lift up subjugated voices, affirm the experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals, and unpack experiences that have led to trauma and hardship. My practice is a safe, anti-racist space. I understand how violence and bigotry harm the body and mind through systematic and overt homophobia, racism, and oppression.
Tasks of the Privileged
To resist false notions of equality.
Intentions vs. consequences: to understand that intentions may be good, but that doesn’t change the fact that the consequences may be bad.
To challenge the ahistorical approach.
To develop thick skin.
To not become a FOE- Framer of other’s experiences
Tasks of the Subjugated
To overcome learned voicelessness; to advocate for oneself
To learn to exhale the negative messages that have become internalized
To overcome the addiction to protect, educate or change the privileged
To deal with one’s own rage, to channel it appropriately, not to eradicate it.
Tasks taken from Courtney Watson, LMFT, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist
My life experiences instilled a deep desire for resilience in me. I was able to find healing through therapy, desire-based living, and mind-body work. That healing led me to want to contribute to the healing and transformation of others. I teach my clients how to heal safely after trauma, how to break down the walls that can encase our hearts when we have developed survival-based habits, and how to liberate our minds and bodies to feel deserving of love and pleasure. I believe that the most important part of life--the very meaning of life-- is love. My goal is to help my clients live desire-based lives where fearless love guides their way, protects them, and reshapes their lives.
About Ally
Ally Barnett is a licensed clinical social worker and AASECT (American Association of Sex Educators and Therapists) certified sex therapist serving individuals, couples, and families in Vermont. She follows a holistic approach grounded in the latest research and evidence-based practices.
Ally works to enable individuals to decode the way that trauma has affected their lives, and teaches them how to hold and honor the present moment through desire-based living. Her clinical training in social work, trauma-informed practice, and Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) all inform the ways she has helped her clients grow and change.
Her own research into healing the mind, body, and heart through life coaching, massage therapy, energy work, and other body-focused practices also helps inform her recommendations for her clients. If you have been wanting to incorporate additional types of therapies and treatment into your life, Ally is able to make referrals within a network of professionals who hold similar philosophies.
While Ally now operates a private practice, her service for clients began when she was a wilderness therapist. Ally worked in outpatient settings and in-patient residential treatment programs that specialized in helping families in crisis. The work that she did focused on finding the help and healing that they needed within themselves. She used her understanding of building internal resources to help her clients overcome obstacles and approach life with confidence.
Her therapeutic work with adolescents, young adults, and their families gave her insight into the way that unconscious patterns inform our day-to-day lives, as well as the ways that goal and desire-based living can be used to overcome limitations. Healing takes resilience and patience, and Ally provides a non-judgemental and knowledgeable guide for her clients as they learn to decode and hold feelings like joy, fear, disgust, sorrow, shame, intimacy, fulfillment, and pride.
Ally lives in Burlington, Vermont and uses telehealth to help clients remotely.