Abby Joffe-Aalto, State Registered Mental Health Associate EXT: 6407

Abby is a graduate student at Lewis and Clark Graduate School earning a Masters Degree in Professional Mental Health Counseling. She is working to become a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). Abby values compassion, integrity, courage, kindness, and curiosity both with clients and in life in general.

Her experience includes working as an instructor for a wilderness therapy program, a kindergarten teacher in a forest school, and a counselor at the Lewis and Clark Community Counseling Clinic. In her work, she has spent time building social-emotional and naturalist curriculum as well as working collaboratively with parents and children to make desired life changes and bring healing to relationships.

Abby’s passion is working with children and their families to build communication and foster loving relationships through compassion, curiosity, and courage. In her practice she utilizes techniques from Play Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Narrative Therapy. Therapeutic space will always include the identities that are valued and influential to each client, including, but certainly not limited to cultural, racial, affectional, gender, religious, and ability identities. She believes that all people have the capacity to promote change in their lives while accepting experiences they deem unpleasant. She believes that everyone can grow and learn from visiting different times of their lives and seeing how themes have formed them into who they are.

Through her experiences, both professional and personal, she has found that a true kinship and connection with nature can have a profound impact on perspective and wellbeing. She has seen the impacts of nature on interpersonal interaction, attention span, curiosity, and much more.

In her free time, she enjoys running, hiking, mountaineering, rock climbing, and even diving into our frigid ocean. She loves tending to the indoor and outdoor plants that live around her, cooking, and learning fun facts about nature.