Commune with your Inner World

“The doors to the world of the wild self are few but precious…”

As a clinical psychotherapist, my work is to act as an accomplice, ally and guide to the gates of your inner world; to help cultivate and regrow parts of the psyche that have been neglected or suppressed out of survival.

In traditional Greek, the word psychotherapy (“psyche” meaning “Breath, Spirit, Soul” and “therapeia”, translated as “Healing”) has always been held throughout time as a sacred journey to mend what feels wounded. Together, we trace the root of your individual and collective pain to its original source. Conjuring the healing balm of intuition and imagination, we are strengthened to reach back through time and memory to reclaim what has been lost, stolen or broken.

Clinical Approach

  • Depth Psychotherapy is a slow process of unfolding your inner world. Like a careful gardener, we gently unearth the deep roots of your unconscious feelings and choices, trace the ancestral origins of thoughts and beliefs, to reveal the invisible patterns shaping your life’s landscape.

    Through archetypal images and symbols drawn from dreams, myth, and your own story, we illuminate the hidden threads woven into the fabric of your journey.

  • Art and body-based therapies unveil our inner world, giving voice to feelings yet unnamed. Through the act of creation, art, movement, storytelling and sound become portals: gateways to healing and transformation that dwell beyond the reach of words.

    The body, a vessel of wisdom and boundless creativity, speaks in sensations: discomfort, pain, desire, pleasure. Each is a signpost guiding us toward a richer existence. To ignore these murmurs is to drift away from ourselves, to lose the thread of connection. In our practice, the body is honored as both guide and wellspring, illuminating the path where healing and insight arise.

  • Our relationship to the earth and the non-human world is often a reflection of our relationship to ourselves. The more than human world beckon us to slow down, listen and develop a new way of relating to the world.

    Earth rituals are not solely about understanding how the land and animal realm can be of service to our nervous system, but restoring our sense of belonging, devotion and reciprocity to worlds seen and unseen. Integrating organic materials into ritual, art making and mindfulness, together we endeavor to re-wild the body and psyche and rekindle relationship to the Soul of the world.

  • Tarot therapy merges the timeless wisdom of tarot with the thoughtful care of contemporary therapy. Each card, a canvas of symbols, opens a window into the unseen landscapes of the mind and heart.

    By reflecting on the imagery and meanings within the cards, clarity emerges, patterns untangle, choices illuminate, all offering a steady hand amid life’s complexities.

  • The unconscious speaks to us in riddles and rhymes, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in our sleep for the waking mind to decipher. Dreams are a living bridge that connect us to the realm of Soul, Ancestors, Archetypes, Earth, Gods, Goddess, Spirit, Shadow and our Inner Wisdom, beckoning the physical and material world to slow, listen and lean into the wisdom the dark night holds.

  • Relational therapy is like a quiet garden where intimacy and safety grow strong beneath the surface. With care and guidance, together we cultivate connection and mend the distrust and distress that sprouted in unsafe or unavailable relationships of the past that may be impacting your current well being.

Areas of specialization:

◈ overwhelm, depression & anxiety
◈ cultivating & strengthening intuition ◈ recovering from narcissistic abuse ◈ “rewilding”: reconnecting to the instinctual life ◈ finding meaning, value & purpose in daily living ◈ creative blocks, self-judgement, perfectionism
◈ intimacy & communication in relationships ◈ healing connections to the non-human world
◈ ancestral patterns, generational trauma
◈ codependency, setting healthy boundaries
◈ unconscious belief systems that limit healing ◈ confidence, worthiness, self-esteem ◈ overwhelm & emotional self-regulation ◈ thresholds, endings/beginnings & life transitions ◈ isolation, grief, loss, belonging, estrangement

“THE DOORS TO THE WORLD OF THE WILD SELF ARE FEW BUT PRECIOUS. IF YOU HAVE A DEEP SCAR, THAT IS A DOOR. IF YOU HAVE AN OLD, OLD STORY, THAT IS A DOOR. IF YOU LOVE THE SKY AND THE WATER SO MUCH YOU ALMOST CANNOT BEAR IT, THAT IS A DOOR. IF YOU YEARN FOR A DEEPER LIFE, A FULL LIFE, A SANE LIFE, THAT IS A DOOR.”

- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Zena Carlota

The seeds of my work as a psychotherapist are rooted in my life as an artist, musician, dancer, storyteller, gardener and devotee to Life’s Great Mysteries. My offerings are woven from the threads of Afro-Indigenous wisdom traditions in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as Jungian and depth psychology. I integrate art making, movement & dance, earth based ritual, myth & storytelling, Tarot & dreamwork as pathways for healing and doorways to the wild unconscious.

I specialize in using intuitive, earth and arts-based approaches to guide clients throughs experiences of anxiety, depression, individual & generational trauma, codependency, developing intuition & discernment, healing from narcissistic abuse, reparenting & inner child development, spiritual awakenings, artistic blocks, life transitions, grief & loss, self-regulation and self-esteem, while using creative rituals to help give shape to feelings not easily expressed in words.

Community

In my practice as a clinician, I specialize in working with artists, healers, creative women, femme and non-binary identified people, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, first generation, immigrant and refugee communities. I offer a loving and non-judgmental container for your experience, affirm your voice and accompany you as an ally to the gates of your inner world.

“I feel therefore I can be free”
— Audre Lorde

Vision

My practice was born from a dream to integrate earth based healing traditions and expressive arts into clinical practice and honor them as the true source of what we consider modern psychotherapy. Calling on the collective memory of ritual, art making, storytelling & myth, movement & dance, dreamwork & relationship to land as potent forms of medicine and allies in anti-oppression. Working with the threads of these practices, we also focus on how we as humans embody generational patterns of our ancestral family line and explore how they manifest in our bodies, relationships, and daily life.

In an age where Black, Brown, Indigenous and Queer peoples have been so brutalized by the mental health system in the West, we are in dire need of medicines for our Spirits, families and communities that do not replicate the harm so many of us are seeking refuge from.

My practice offers a container that honors non-linear ways of knowing, allows room to rest, dream, imagine, and creates space to slow down long enough to listen for what medicine is needed.

    • M.A. Counseling psychology & expressive arts therapy, California Institute of Integral Studies

    • Certificate, Black psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies

    • Practicum, Community mental health, Art Therapy Institute of North Carolina

    • B.A. Environmental Studies, Antioch University

    • Tarot for the Wild Soul, Lindsay Mack

    • Finding ourselves in fairytales: A narrative psychological approach, Dr. Sharon Blackie, Pacifica Graduate Institute

    • Tending the Hearth: Pre-colonial European folk magic traditions, Sister Spinster

    • Eco-Therapy: Conceptualization, Frame and Liability: Axis Mundi Center for Mental Health

    • Connecting with Nature Indoors and on Zoom, The Earthbody Institute

    • "Reclaiming the Mythical Feminine: Jungian & post-Jungian dreamwork & Goddess mythology, Anima Mundi School

    • The 4 I’s of Oppression: Axis Mundi Center for Mental Health

    • Unnameable losses: The unmetabolized ambiguous grief of adult children of refugees, Collectively Rooted

    • Working with Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Clients, Axis Mundi Center for Mental Health

    • “Medicinal Plants of the Gulf South”, Rowan & Sage

    • Alchemical Herbalism, School of Evolutionary Herbalism

    • Mujeres de Barro: Clay and Cacao with Mariana Mae

    • Emotionally Focused Therapy Intensive: Attachment Based Interventions for Couples in Crisis, Sue Johnson, PESI

    • Play Therapy with African American Children Exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences, Association of Play Therapy

    • Indigenous Healing Practices: Story Teaches – Art Heals, Collectively Rooted

    • Healing: I believe that you have the capacity to heal yourself. I am here as an ally, guide and witness for the transformation you are initiating.

    • Humility: I believe listening and humility are the soil in which understanding flourishes. I don’t presume to know better than you what is right for your life.

    • Community: I believe that we do not heal in isolation. Our unique knowing combines to create solutions.

    • Belonging: I believe that all parts of you are welcome here.

    • Body wisdom: Listening to the joy, discomfort, pain and desires of the body helps to create connection and integration in our lives.

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