Shawn Bact, LCSW
(They/Them/Theirs)

Shawn is a warm, strengths-based, and trauma-informed therapist who works collaboratively with clients to navigate challenges, identify and achieve goals, and co-create spaces for healing. They believe that the therapeutic relationship can be a cornerstone of healing, that each person’s healing process is unique, and that the client is the expert on their own healing journey. Shawn aims to meet clients where they are with compassion and curiosity. They work both with their client’s conscious self-understanding and also below the level of language to understand the ways in which a client’s body is holding their pain and wounding, as well as their strength, resilience, and survival.

Shawn’s clinical interests include somatic-based therapies, PTSD and complex trauma, dissociation, gender and sexuality identity development, gender-affirming care, marginalized stress and oppression, non-heteronormative relationships, life transitions, substance use, harm reduction, abolitionism, body neutrality, depression, and mindfulness. Shawn is trained in EMDR therapy and is currently working towards certification in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level 1. Shawn’s work also draws from the liberation health model, psychodynamic therapy, narrative therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, solutions focused therapy, and components-based parts therapy. As a nonbinary, transgender clinician who specializes in the treatment of trauma, Shawn particularly enjoys working with queer and trans folks who have experienced trauma. As a White clinician, Shawn is committed to lifelong engagement in anti-racism and anti-oppression work, to acknowledging the harm caused by the mental health system, and to actively disrupting the systems and structures upholding White supremacy in mental health care.

Shawn received their MSW from Simmons University with a certificate in the treatment of trauma, and their MBA from The Heller School at Brandeis University. They have experience providing individual outpatient and group therapy to undergraduate and graduate level college students, as well as providing in-home support to BIPOC LGBTQIA+ young adults and their families. Outside of work, Shawn enjoys supporting transgender and gender non-conforming youth, community organizing to build the world they want to live in, finding new bodies of water to float in, riding their bike, and drinking warm beverages.