Starting your mental health journey can be scary, but I'm glad you're here. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to begin this experience. I look forward to supporting you along the way. My name is Ali, and I'm the founder of Equine Empowered Counseling Center, located in rural Hennepin, Illinois. I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in IL, with 17 years of professional work experience. My goal is to provide clients with a warm and safe environment where thoughts and feelings can be shared without fear of judgment. It is my stance that the use of appropriately timed humor allows us to reduce the intensity of life's struggles. . I also take a strengths based approach to empowering clients to tackle social, emotional, behavioral, family, biological, and mental health struggles. My professional background includes providing psychiatric crisis work, trauma, traditional talk-therapy, Walk-and-Talk therapy, Animal Assisted Therapies, Equine Assisted Psychotherapy, and Therapeutic Riding. I have experience in helping clients with stress, anxiety, trauma, abuse, greif, motivation, self esteem, confidence, & depression. I have also spent a lot of time working with wards of the state, those who have gone through the DCFS system, and those who have been adopted. Gardening, Cooking, Nature, Art, and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (it's similar to EMDR Therapy) are also available at EECC.