About Tia Young

I once had a client say that they rarely felt comfortable in therapists’ offices. But I was so weird that they knew anything they did couldn’t be any weirder than me.

Some examples:

  • Wearing unicorn slippers in the winter. Going barefoot in the summer because it helps me to be more grounded.
  • Sitting cross legged or rocking in my rocking chairs because I have injured my hip and tailbone. They get sore without frequent position changes or movement.
  • Playing with fidget toys because they stimulate the vagus nerve in my fingertips, which helps me to stay calm.
  • Drinking soda even though I know it’s bad for me.
  • My cats and dogs are my frequent companions during online sessions. They decide where they spend their time and they generally choose a spot near me.
  • When I’m not being a therapist, I spend time with my partner dancing to goth music, spinning glow poi or fire poi, reading, singing, jumping on my trampoline, talking to friends, and generally being a life-long student.

     

    Portrait of person smiling at the camera in an open park, near a dirt field. This is Christia Young, the founder of Badass Therapy! She offers grief and loss therapy in denver, abuse counseling in colorado, therapy for attachment issues in denver, co, and more. Contact her for support with alternative therapy, and remember you're a badass!

    Your role in therapy

    I work best with clients who want to be in therapy and come prepared with what they want to work on each session.

    We’ll start each session by asking what you want to talk about.

    I don’t provide worksheets, homework assignments, or assign readings.

    Some clients take notes so they can review what we talked about in session or bring notes to remind themselves what they want to talk about while we’re meeting.

    The more specific examples you have of something you are struggling with, the better I will be able to help you shift your thoughts or approach.

    My approach as a therapist in denver, co

    I want to help you change the way that you automatically think or react, which involves retraining your brain through repeated experiences.

    At first, I will ask a lot of questions in order to get to know you because it helps me start to put together a story of your life that brought you to this point.

    In early sessions, I will do more listening and less talking.

    Some therapists say they are non-judgmental. But let’s be honest, you’re paying me to judge what’s going on. And help you figure out how to do life differently. So I will start to give you ideas about how to do just that.

    If you have tried them before, think they are stupid, or think they won’t work for you, it’s important to tell me that. You go home and try them and they don’t work, I need to know that. If you go home and don’t try them, I need to know that. Some of my ideas suck. Some are great… for someone else.

    We need to find the ideas that are great for you.

    A woman stands with a bright smile as she looks at the camera. She is standing outside, and a park slide can be seen in the background. This is Tia Young, the founder of Badass therapy. She offers childhood trauma therapy in denver, co, complex ptsd treatment in colorado, counseling for domestic violence and rape, and more. Contact her today and start healing!

    My style as a therapist in denver, co

    I do my best to start and end our sessions on time because it’s important to me to be reliable and predictable. Also, I’m an introvert, so it’s super important for me to get a bit of alone time in between clients.

    Honesty is super important to me, which I why I don’t work with affairs and do work with clients engaged in ethical non-monogamy.

    Consent is also super important to me, so I don’t want you to just go along with things because you think I’m in charge. I work for you. Please tell me if you don’t like something or it’s not helpful.

    I may interrupt you at times or be very direct, which isn’t always comfortable.

    I tend to cuss because sometimes a cuss word conveys emotion much better than something more proper and socially acceptable.

    We talk about some heavy shit and it can get to be too much at times. My job is to help make sure we don’t get to that point, so I may be sarcastic, irreverent, and make jokes.

    I’m not always the same from session to session because my style varies as I get to know what works best for you and what you need that day.

    My experiences as a client and how this influenced the theories I use as a therapist in denver, co

    I’ve been in therapy off and on since I was 8 years old and some therapists were great while others were just terrible. I’ve fired a lot of therapists.

    Traditional talk therapy only got me so far.

    It helped with basic skills for depression and anxiety. Helped me figure out I needed a better job rather than better people skills.

    It did not help with my childhood trauma, abusive relationships, and chronic illness.

    I began seeking alternative therapy modalities and eventually got my graduate degree in Somatic Psychology. People ask if I have specific certifications and I don’t. But that’s because I learned the basics of a lot of somatic techniques.

    Grad school further inspired my love of neuropsychology, which I still geek out about in my spare time. Neuropsychology helped me to know that willpower alone is not enough. I also learned to work with the way that my body and brain process the world around me.

    I always felt like I was just slapping Band-Aids on things and figuring out how to better fake being a healthy person. Until I met Michael Sieck.

    I spent years with Michael doing therapy and post-grad training. I learned about the subtle things that happen when we are very young that shape how we interact with the world and the people around us. Some of the ways we are shaped are good and some are bad. We looked at how those experiences are typically held in the body, shaping the ways that people move and what they believe about themselves and others.

    It suddenly made sense why I was fucked up in the ways that I was. And the experiences I needed to have in order to heal.

    I also credit this with my superpower of being able to tell what someone’s early developmental experiences were like based on listening to how they describe things and how they move while describing them.

    Some facts about me that might matter to you when picking your therapist in colorado:

    Woman making a funny face at the camera by sucking her cheeks in, making a fish mouth. This is Christia Young, the founder of Badass Therapy. She offers grief and loss therapy in colorado, counseling for domestic violence, complex ptsd treatment in colorado, and more. Contact her today for the support you deserve, and remember you're a badass!
    • Preferred name is Tia and pronouns are she/her.
    • Wanted to be a therapist since I was in 8th  grade.
    • Been in the mental health field since 2001 doing a variety of jobs in a shit ton of places.
    • A lot of my experience has been with domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, and grief. I am very familiar with the fucked-up things humans do to other humans, especially those they claim to love.
    • Approach my life and work from an anti-oppression frameworkwhich includes adults, children, animals, and the planet. Do my best to be conscious and inclusive, but I still get it wrong  some of the time and take steps to educate myself when I do.
    • Recognize how often we are damaged by our communities and how much our communities can be a part of our healing.
    • Continue to work on my privilege as a white, middle class, English-speaking, cisgender, person born in the USA.
    • Child free by choice. Value my role as an auntie to my biological and adopted nieces and nephews as well as my close friends’ children. Support women’s right to choose to have children or not by whatever methods they feel are appropriate.
    • Raised in a super judgy Southern Baptist church and am no longer Christian or Pagan. My partner is atheist.
    • Come from a military family that stayed in one place. My partner is former military and also comes from a military family.
    • Pansexual. I am currently monogamous, but have had ethically non-monogamous relationships. I geek out about good sex and kink.
    • Sex positive and body positive. Sex work is legitimate work. Even if you aren’t asexual and/or aromantic, you don’t need sex or an intimate relationship to have a fulfilling life. Friendships and other relationships are just as important  as intimate partnerships. You do not exist in this world to be visually appealing to other people.
    • Registered as an independent voter and am super liberal, if you hadn’t already figured that out from the rest of this.
    • Neurodivergent, introvert, external processor, and kinesthetic learner.
    • Highly sensitive person with significant sensory sensitivities.
    • Zebra. I have rare diseases amongst other chronic illnesses that cause chronic pain, so I need to take care of my body during our sessions in order to ensure that it doesn’t distract my attention from you. It also means I have a lot of medical appointments and will be taking time off for surgeries and procedures.
    • Don’t love phone calls unless they are scheduled ahead of time. Love texting and it’s the quickest way to get a hold of me. I can typically respond to a text in a free minute or two in between clients. I’d rather somebody send me a text rather than leave a voicemail. Email is the slowest way to get a hold of me. I typically check emails once a day. Rarely check it on days when I’m not seeing clients.
    • Have semi-colon tattoos on the inside of my wrists for suicide awareness.

    “She shows her ravaged self to the one person who can take it. No, incorrect. Marlene may not be able to take it. She shows herself whether or not Marlene can take it. That is closer. To risk in therapy what no one can take. The human race has not evolved the capacity to take what it does to itself, the pain people inflict on each other. In therapy one risks what is too much for another, too much for oneself. One risks what no one can take or may ever be able to take. That enters the room and is shared, whether or not anyone can take it.” –Michael Eigen

    I studied a lot of things on my way to becoming a therapist in Denver:

    Close up of rolled towels resting next to glass vase of essential oils with plants inside. Badass Therapy provides massage therapy, energy healing, alternative therapy, and more. Contact us today for support from an experienced therapist, and remember you're a badass!

    Massage Therapy with advanced healing in:

    • Trauma Touch Therapy in order to help clients process the feelings that might be triggered by a massage
    • Maya Abdominal Massage, a type of massage that specifically addresses breathing, digestion, and reproduction- the three systems that are most affected by trauma
    • Advanced training in Maya massage for pregnancy, which included experience with clients who have experienced infertility, miscarriages, and stillbirths. Half of the students that I shared core classes with in grad school majored in prenatal and perinatal psychology. So I learned a lot about it during lunches and after classes.
    Image of circular streaks of light. The streaks get smaller on the left side of the image, and center around a point that cannot be seen. This is similar to the feeling of the world spinning out of control during a ptsd flashback. Badass therapy can support you with a complex ptsd therapist in colorado. Contact us today for complex ptsd treatment in colorado, developmental trauma therapy in denver, co, therapy for attachment issues in denver, co, and more. Contact us today fo the support you deserve, and remember that you're a badass!

    Energy Healing:

    • Tapping which I now teach to clients
    • Reiki Master
    • Healing Touch
    • Energetic Healing– a spinoff of Healing Touch that was developed by a psychiatric nurse specifically to address mental health conditions
    Close up of a scattered deck of tarot cards. Badass Therapy allows clients to preform their own readings, provide alternative therapy, energy healing, massage therapy, and more. Contact us today for therapy for chronic pain, trauma therapy, and remember you're a badass!

    Tarot and Pendulum testing

    • I use my intuition during therapy, which could be some sort of mystical power I have. Or it could be my limbic system sending information to my belly brain that tells me something it’s figured out based on the aggregate data of my previous life experiences
    • There are typically card decks in my waiting room, which clients can use for their own readings
    • I use a pendulum or tarot card readings to make a lot of personal decisions

    Credentials

    Graduate School: The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, M.A. in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Somatic Psychology, 2011

    License Information: Christia Young, Licensed Professional Counselor, #11895, since 4/1/2014

    Schedule a free 20-minute consultation with Tia Young if you feel ready to Start with a therapist in denver, co.

    You can start online therapy in Colorado. whether you live in Denver, Evergreen, conifer, bailey, or pine.

    learn more about how I can help if you have shit self-esteem.

    Serving the Denver Metro Area, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Boulder, Grand Junction, Greeley, Pueblo and the entire state with online therapy in Colorado. I do not see clients at my home-based office located in Bailey, CO.

    Day time and evening sessions available