Mackenzie Steiner

I am a transgender clinical psychologist practicing in California (and virtually in Texas) who has centered my 20+ year practice around healing and recovery from a broad array of complex traumatic influences; from those arising from the toxic impacts of the rigid gender binary... to abuse and neglect in one’s family and broader community... to the impacts of war. I have a passion for serving members of the trans, non-binary, two spirit and gender-expansive community as well as members of the broader queer community. I am deeply invested in helping queer folx to explore the impacts of and heal from cisnormative and heterosexist cultural forces that have and continue to pressure us to conform to ideologies and value systems that are incongruent with the realities of our bodies and authentic identities. As Emelie Zola noted “If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow.” The imposition of alien ways of (1) relating to ourselves and (2) moving through the world is a form of denial or suppression of our “truth” and a source of great suffering.

Additionally, I have spent many years of my practice serving veterans from countless different gender, sexual, racial, and spiritual backgrounds who were recovering from the impacts of complex trauma and addictions. I have deeply specialized in the complex interrelationship between trauma and the addictive behaviors that often arise out of efforts to cope with the associated mental health impacts of that trauma. I have particularly focused on understanding trauma and addiction through the lens of interpersonal neurobiology and how traumas of various sorts can lead to long-term problematic reshaping of the survival functions (fight, flight, freeze and fawn) of our nervous system. This has naturally included diving into the depths of understanding the dissociative impacts of trauma including it’s associations with experiences of plurality.