About Highsmith

  • Licensed Mental Health Counselor

  • Queer Educator

  • Clinical Interviewer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center & Harvard University

  • Certified Options Counselor

  • Graduate Counseling Instructor at Boston College

  • Certified in Early Psychosis Identification

Therapeutic Philosophy

Highsmith is a queer licensed therapist specializing in identity development at all ages. She works to empower her clients to feel confident and competent to understand the roots of their difficulties so that they can make real and lasting changes. She acquired her Masters in Mental Health Counseling from Boston College and her specialties include LGBTQIA+ identity development for adolescents and young adults, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, bereavement, communication, and relationship management. Utilizing a myriad of theories including feminist relational-cultural, mindfulness, CBT, and existential approaches, she aids clients by helping them understand solution-focused approaches to life’s many challenges. She works with all ages, specializing in work with teens, young adults, and couples in various stages of their relationship.

A Certified Options Counselor, Highsmith has expertise at the intersection of mental health and advocacy. She is sex-positive, trans- and non-binary-inclusive, supportive of poly and kink relationships, and culturally competent working with people whose backgrounds differ from her own. You are the expert on your own life; Highsmith’s job as your therapist is to be an extra set of eyes and insights into how to improve your quality of life.

Therapeutic Approaches

Feminist Therapy

Power is present in all areas of life, often in ways we are unaware of. Through feminist therapy the client learns to identify where pressure to act in certain ways comes from, whether it be from society and societal norms, family and friends, or internally. Feminist therapy allows the client to move away from how they feel they “should” act and instead focus on how they truly want to act. In the therapeutic relationship, the client should expect to be treated as the expert and to feel empowered to speak up about how they want therapy to proceed.

Relational-Cultural Therapy

A core technique of Relational-Cultural work is naming systems of oppression present in everyday life and to uplift the voices of marginalized populations. Mental health, relationships, and crisis do not exist in a vacuum: identity plays a large role in how experiences will impact us. By utilizing RCT, clients should expect to explore how their identities, both visible and not, have influenced their development, temperament, and expectations for themselves.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Mental health struggles are not a sign of disease and are nothing to be ashamed of. All of us experience these struggles, which include excessive worry, grief, or uncertainty in understanding who we are.  But when mental health symptoms get in the way of living a good life, we need techniques that help us overcome these challenges. Through mindfulness-based CBT, clients will learn skills and strategies to address both everyday stressors and difficult life events through a compassion-based lens, and free themselves of their internal judgement. When clients understand the cues from their bodies that let them know something isn’t right, they can more accurately address the root causes of our problems, not just the symptoms.

Credentials

  • Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Massachusetts #5000034

  • Master’s in Counseling Psychology, Boston College

  • Bachelor’s in Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  • Bachelor’s in Dramatic Art, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  • Minor in English Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  • Certified Options Counselor, Boston University

  • Certified Psychosis Clinical Interviewer, Harvard University