Sex-Positive, Kink Allied Therapists in Asheville, NC

My name is Kai (he/him), I'm a clinical social worker/therapist at the Fosnight Center for Sexual Health located in Asheville, NC. I openly identify with the LGBTQIA+ community as a Queer, transgender man, and I have over seven years of experience working in trauma and crisis counseling. I am sex-positive, sex worker-allied, BDSM/ Kink -aware, domestic violence-informed, and allied with consensual, non-monogamous/polyamorous communities. I utilize an anti-racist, intersectional framework to decenter white-ness in clinical spaces and promote culturally responsive care.

I am a LCMHCS (Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Supervisor) who specializes in providing counseling to adults. During therapy sessions, I pull from trauma-informed approaches, cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, and mindfulness-based stress reduction to empower clients to embrace authentic self-expression and increase their feelings of self-worth and well-being. I also specialize in treating ADHD in adults. I am also a Licensed Supervisor with experience supervising interns. I have 20 years of counseling experience.

Therapy can help you understand how past experiences impact your daily life and relationships. By recognizing these patterns, we can begin cultivating lasting change in our interactions and relationships. Most of my clients want to improve their relationships, their sex life, or explore their identities or transitions. I specialize in sex and relationship therapy, enhancing intimacy and desire, improving differences in desire, and working through pain or dysfunction, particularly within the queer community. I also offer psychological evaluations to clarify diagnoses and collaborate on treatment recommendations.

Do you find yourself going through an uncomfortable period of change? Or maybe you’re facing a need for change and feeling overwhelmed by it. Either way, you may be dealing with stress, grief, isolation, or addiction. Additional factors like discrimination burden, caregiving roles, and financial difficulty may make change seem impossible. It can feel safer to live with dissatisfaction than to risk losing the comfort of routine, but avoidance can allow unhappiness to snowball. This can happen at any age. Humans grow and change throughout our lives, which requires maintenance, flexibility, and willingness to tune in to our needs.

The challenges that are presented in your life can greatly affect the quality of your life. I assist individuals in finding direction by utilizing an affirming, empowering, and judgment-free approach in a safe environment. I specialize in trauma and dissociative symptoms and work with the LGBTQ+, transgender, gender expressive, sex worker, consensual non-monogamy, and kink communities. My approach to counseling is to meet you where you are and work together to meet collaborative treatment goals.

My practice is based on anti-oppressive principles & embodied awareness. I'm an openly queer therapist, and I work with adults 25+ of all sexualities & genders to address depression, anxiety, life transitions, chronic pain, family conflict, relationship issues, self-esteem, & trauma using a holistic approach to healing. I have expertise in addressing sexual violence & the traumatic effects of systems (racism, sexism, homophobia etc). I encourage clients to nurture their inner voice, to gently observe what happens in the present moment, & to engage actively in the therapeutic process. My practice is poly, kink & sex worker affirming.

Counseling is such meaningful and rewarding work and I am so grateful that I get to do it. My goal is to always be growing as a person right alongside you and to always approach my work with a sense of openness and curiosity rather than judgment. After all, we’re just two humans talking about being human. My hope is that you can learn to further embrace your humanness and leave behind your shame in the process. While talk therapy can be extremely valuable, I recognize that there are some problems that conventional talk therapy can’t quite reach, which is why I typically use a more experiential, trauma-focused approach to counseling.

I work with clients who feel disconnected from themselves or others. Clients often tell me of not knowing who they are, what they want in life, who they like, or who they want to be. They share with me about feeling disconnected in their relationships, feeling isolated, having a loss of intimacy or eroticism, and having trouble with communication. Clients often share the desire to grow within themselves and their relationships, to figure out who they are and where they want to go. When we work together I will provide a safe, nonjudgmental space for us to go deep, explore those areas of growth and work on achieving your goals.

I'm a psychotherapist experienced in treating depression, anxiety, ADHD and more. I help people better cope with distressing symptoms and stressful situations/events, such as trauma, grief & loss, life transitions. I work with clients to find strength, meaning, joy and relief while adjusting to challenges-- whether marriage, divorce, relocation, career change, any new role or phase in life. I work with individuals, couples & families to achieve greater peace, understanding & satisfaction in relationships, enhance parenting skills, stress & anger management skills, along with skills and strategies to improve self-esteem, self-care, emotional regulation, personal boundaries, mindfulness, and more.