Beyond the Bottom Line
Message from Dr. Salazar:
As founder and owner of Strengthening Wellness, PLLC, my commitment to clients, community, peers, students, and my Associates is to always grow, always be okay with not being the expert in a life that is not mine, and to always approach mental health by accessing wellness which has been denied to us for generations. I commit to this by being open to talking about culture, race, experiences, discrimination, and the hard topics that influence marginalized & excluded lives with compassion and humility. Clients, counselors, and students are valued for who they are and are always welcome in our space to come as they are, and to be their whole glorious self.
Dr. Ana M. Salazar, LPC-S
Strength & Wellness
There are dozens of different academic theories on how to help people through counseling. The foundational theories taught in many counseling programs uses a deficit based view of people, especially marginalized communities. This means we’re looking at people from what’s wrong with them. And the definitions of what’s “right” is from a narrow, Eurocentric viewpoint.
Strength and wellness is defined & inspired from different areas of a person’s life, upbringing, and culture. We’ve shifted how we’re viewing wellness because more Black, Latino, brown, Indigenous, Queer, disabled, and other marginalized voices are stepping forward. And we have a long way to go to disrupt, rewrite, and expand the field overall.
There are amazing counselors & educators doing the hard work of decolonizing counseling & broadening the definition of wellness. They are facing an entire system that needs to be redone. In establishing Strengthening Wellness, the goal is to continue expanding; to empower voices and skills that have been censored, suppressed, or discouraged for far too long. If we can strengthen our identities & skills to build and support personal meanings of wellness individually, we can overcome together. Together, we can leave a lasting impact to continue changing and growing in the field of mental wellness, healing, and our world.
Culturally Accepting & Receptive Therapy Services
The field of counseling is overwhelmingly white, eurocentric, and colonized. As such, we open space specifically for clients with intersectionalities who are not served elsewhere. All counselors come from a variety of backgrounds and are trained to provide culturally humble and accepting therapy services. Combined with their own life experiences and personal identities, we strive to offer a safe space for anyone seeking healing.
Equitable Access to Quality Mental Wellness Services
As part of our commitment to mental health equity and access to quality mental wellness services, our practice offers sliding fee scale services to eligible clients for counseling services. Strengthening Wellness, PLLC uses the Nueces County, Texas income guidelines (or your local guidelines, whichever is lower) to offer lower cost counseling services. These spots are currently limited and as we expand, so will our access to equitable wellness space.
Dr. Salazar’s Statement on Personally Giving Back to the Counseling Field
My research and personal experience found mentorship, support, and guidance as lacking in the counseling field for marginalized communities, so this is where I invest my energy and my time because I can have the most benefit across the field to help others who will in turn help even more people.
I find or offer opportunities for marginalized Associates or students at Master’s and Doctoral levels to meet their professional & academic goals in the world of mental health. If we can’t find one, I offer to create opportunities or invite them to join me in my endeavors. I also offer free consultation services to Master’s or Doctoral students preparing professional research presentations and proposals to help them prepare their talk and research to feel confident and prepared.
Land Acknowledgement
We are writing to you from the geographic area colonized as south Texas, which was stolen from the Lipan Apache, Karankawa, and others whose tribal and nations' names have been erased by colonizers, war, and disease. As counselors, we acknowledge the disruption of Indigenous relationships to land and water and we also accept the truth that Indigenous people all over the world continue to suffer under the effects of oppression while we all benefit from the power and privilege of the oppressor. We thank the Indigenous Peoples for stewarding these Lands for generations. We pay respect to the Elders, past, present, and future. We acknowledge we occupy and participate in continued exploitation of Lands that are not native to us.