Nica Selvaggio Therapy
English Speaking Therapy + Coaching
Paris | Seattle | NYC | Hawaii | Lebanon
My name is Dominica Selvaggio and I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Coach, and Artist/Writer with over 13 years of clinical experience. I am based in Paris, France, and offer Teletherapy and Coaching services across borders. My time is spent traveling between the United States, France, and Lebanon.
I understand what it means to need care that moves with you.
Like any typical ADHDer, my path has included many detours and side quests, taking me from inpatient eating disorder treatment hospital settings, to the wilds of nature practicing psychadelic assisted therapy, to facilitating elemental communal grieving rituals in Zoom rooms, to hosting creative trauma healing writing workshops in bar basements, and so much more.
I serve with an open and curious heart, willing to brave the dark places you don’t dare tread alone.
If you have made it this far, KEEP GOING.
Specialties
ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (testing/diagnostic interviewing available)
Eating Disorders
Complex PTSD and Trauma Related Disorders
Religious Trauma
Complex Grief/Bereavement
Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Addiction and Substance Abuse
Adult Adoptee Identity Development
LGBTQIA Identity + Gender Identity Development
Sex/Intimacy + Relationship Counseling
Postpartum Depression/Anxiety + New Parenthood
Immigrant Acculturation Issues
Cross Cultural Family/Relationship Issues
Chronic Illness / Chronic Pain / Disability
Burnout
Psychedelic Assisted Therapy + Integration
Artist and Creative Blocks
Approach
I am a web weaver and pattern connecter by nature, and so my approach blends many therapeutic modalities dependent on the specific needs of my clients. There is no “one size fits all approach.”
At the core of my practice, I hold deeply humanistic and decolonial views of healing. I do not believe in hierarchy in the therapy room. You are the expert of your story. I am here to create the conditions in which you can bloom and find your own voice and knowing.
I understand that the systems we live in, and identities we hold, have a significant impact in the way that we experience our mental health and the world around us. I practice through an anti-racist, weight neutral, sex positive, and trauma informed lens.
The therapeutic practices I have specialized training and certifications in include:
Somatic Experiencing
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
EMDR
Internal Family Systems
Emotion Focused Couples Therapy
Psychodynamic Therapy
Ketamine Assisted Therapy
Psilocybin Assisted Therapy
Psychedelic Integration Therapy
Expressive Therapies (Art + Writing + Movement)
Ecotherapy + Wilderness Therapy
Narrative Therapy
Bibliotherapy
Training + Experience
I earned my Masters of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Northern Illinois University in 2014, in addition to a Certificate of Graduate Studies in Eating Disorders. I have been licensed as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington state since 2015 (LH60596733).
The first 6 years of my career were spent working in high acuity inpatient and residential hospital settings treating people struggling with eating disorders, mood disorders, and trauma related disorders. In these settings, I found myself understanding that there has to be a better way to treat profound suffering than carceral care models that strip people of their agency and create a “revolving door” effect.
In private practice, I began to dig into alternative models of healing outside the typical “evidence based practice” approaches I had learned in school and in hospitals. I trained with the Polaris Insight Center in San Francisco in Ketamine Assisted Therapy, the Somatic Experiencing Institute in Somatic Therapy, MycoMeditations in Jamaica in Psilocybin Assisted Therapy, and many many additional CEUs and supervision in the therapies listed above.
But the most important experience I have to offer you as a Clinician is my own lived path of trauma recovery. As a foster care/adoption survivor, queer/neurodivergent person, and immigrant, I found my way back into my body through Dance, Art, Poetry, Nature, and countless hours of my own therapy. I have been where you are.
As a result, I have created many unique offerings, designed to facilitate deep expression, understanding, and embodiment through the darkest parts of the human experience.
Therapy won’t “fix” you, because there is nothing to be fixed. I’m here to help you remember who you were before the world told you who you had to be.
Keep scrolling to learn more about my current offerings
and to find a poem from me to you.
Offerings
Individual Therapy + Coaching
Individual therapy is a container to fully meet yourself in the presence of a compassionate witness. The therapeutic relationship is one of the most uniquely healing relationships we get to experience as people because it is designed to simultaneously affirm, while also challenging the parts of us that are stuck in unhelpful patterns. I am not a “blank slate” therapist, and you will know exactly what I am thinking and feeling as I sit across from you.
Couples/Relationship Therapy + Coaching
Couples/Relationship therapy is a container for you and your partner, or friend, or family member to meet each other more fully. Often when we are in relationship, we are blinded to the dynamics we have become entrenched in. A neutral third party can be extremely useful in identifying patterns, uncovering hidden feelings/resentments, and building new ways of relating. Therapy can improve communication patterns and build more resilience in your relationships. I offer support in various relational styles (i.e. ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, queer relationships, etc).
Group Therapy + Wild Mourning Grief Retreats
We rarely heal in isolation, and research has shown over and over again that a supportive group or community can be enough to buffer us through traumatic or painful life circumstances. Group therapy can be a lower cost option for those seeking assistance but unable to access Individual Therapy rates. I offer group therapy and retreats for those struggling with Grief and Gender Identity.
ADHD/Autism Clinical Interviews/Diagnostic Testing
It can be so difficult to find a practitioner who understands neurodivergence both clinically and from the inside. I can offer you a curious, grounded, and clinically precise assessment process designed to get you the diagnosis/documentation you need to access disability accomodations and/or medication assistance.
Sensory Integration Design + Organization Services
Living with neurodivergence can mean that you are acutely impacted by sensory stimuli in your environment. Sometimes creating an intentional home or office space, designed with your sensory and executive function limitations in mind, can be the difference between a hard day and complete shutdown. I truly love helping people create aesthetic and organzied spaces designed to help their brains exhale.
Public Speaking + Community Mental Health Trainings
If you need a perspective grounded in both clinical and lived experience, look no further. I spent many years teaching at the Masters Graduate level to Counseling students, coordinating community mental health events across the United States designed to provide education and care to vulnerable populations, and have been on many a podcast interview as an artist and practitioner.
a letter from your therapist
we’ve been conditioned to think
that we can find god in hierarchy
that there is a difference between
those who sit on the couch
and those who sit in the chair
but my degrees are hidden in frames
behind watercolors i’ve painted
when i didn’t know if i’d make it
through the dark nights of my soul
there’s a reason for the wounded healer archetype
and i’ve been healing so long i’ve forgotten
there was never anything broken inside to begin with
and all of the years i spent trapped in
self hate and harmful ways of coping
trying to recover from objectification in
systems of extraction-
it gave me wisdom never found in
western clinical ways of conceptualization
which will have you believing that
those who pay for treatment are fundamentally flawed.
no wonder so many people are afraid of
the chains of diagnosis and the pathologizing of grief
be careful not to fall into the trance of a label
becoming your identity.
the DSM-V has nothing listed about
the effects of complex trauma, chronic poverty or
systemic oppression on a human psyche.
or the ways that what we call “undesireable symptoms”
can be the very behaviors that keep you from dying.
and sometimes the only way to come back into wholeness is
to understand that you always were.
and it isn’t your fault if you find yourself afraid to open up
to a “professional” who asks you to trust them
over your own intuitive knowing of what is and isn’t safe
to let go of whole ways of being that have served you-
until they did not.
and it’s ok to fear judgment or collapse if you start to share
the complexity of your being
because all of that armor you’ve built around your heart
was built to protect from those who don’t understand
what it means to grow from the cracks.
and if you finally gain the courage to step into my office and
sit across from me on the couch
it’ll be warm from all the tears i’ve shed sitting where you are
and you should know i’m far from perfect
but i’ve learned to make beauty from the grotesque
and the real culprit of “disease” is feeling lonely
overworked exploited disconnected invalidated-
not something in your spirit. it takes bravery to face
the monsters placed in your head by a society that profits
from you staying “sick.” and to be fully present
in your soul and body doesn’t require solitary confinement
because nobody can banish demons on their own
we were always meant to share our stories in community
circled around fire held by one another
to give and recieve hymns and food
but in this time of extreme disconnect and endless scrolling
in the chair i sit. with my degrees hidden in frame behind
watercolors i’ve painted. they give me more credibility
than any school, and i am no expert in the story of you
so i will never tell you what is best for your humanity
i am only a compassionate witness to watch you grow
into who you were before someone told you how
to fix what was already perfect.
Let’s get started
I’m so glad you’re here.
If you are interested in setting up a free 15 minute consultation call, or going ahead and scheduling your first session, you can click the link below to get into my calendar. You can also reach me through the contact form on this website or by directly emailing me.
I look forward to meeting you and creating a space in which you can feel more alive and true in your life and relationships.