About Us

Portland Therapy Project is founded and run by Sawyer Salameh, LPC and Roza Skenderova, LPC. We share in our passion for giving back to our communities by providing OHP clients access to quality, queer knowledgeable care and supporting student interns in building sustainable practices.

For more information on us, check out our individual practices:portlandsomaticcounseling.com
ruggedheartcounseling.com

Anushka Pawashe

(She/Her)Mental Health Intern

Provides Therapy in EnglishCurrent Availability for New Clients

I am a graduate student in the clinical mental health counseling program at Portland State University.I’m a second-generation South Asian American and my work in counseling is grounded in the belief that healing happens when we feel safe enough to come home to ourselves. I bring a culturally affirming, body-centered approach to therapy—one that honors your full story, including your ancestry, identity, and lived experiences.My core areas of interest include working with immigrant and BIPOC populations and folks from other marginalized communities who are navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, neurodiversity, intergenerational patterns, or just trying to feel more connected to themselves. As someone who knows what it’s like to move between cultures and carry invisible stories, I offer a space where you don’t have to explain yourself.My style is warm, collaborative, and rooted in mindfulness and somatic work. That means we’ll pay attention not just to your thoughts, but also to how your body holds emotion, memory, and wisdom. I believe therapy can be a space to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with yourself and with what matters most in your story.

Kowkie Durst

(He/Him)Mental Health Intern

Provides Therapy in EnglishCurrent Availability for New Clients

I am a graduate student of mental health counseling through Adams State University, as well as a ceramic artist. I have taught college ceramics and art courses for over fifteen years in Portland, Oregon and am enthusiastic about transferring my skills from the classroom to working with individuals and groups in therapy. I value cultural humility, and realize my positionality brings strengths and limitations as a white able-bodied transgender man, coming from a middle-class background.As a counselor, I feel committed to partnering with clients to co-create therapy goals and tailor somatic, creative/art-based or talk-based interventions. My values center gender, racial, relational, and cultural contexts to honor the whole person and their environment, both past and present. I am committed to creating a safe container of support by acknowledging clients’ own strengths and capacities. I see clients as the expert of their own experiences.I especially enjoy supporting and working with queer and gender-diverse youth and adults, recognizing the unique challenges and strengths of our community during this heightened political moment. I am passionate about supporting individuals around gender dysphoria and identity exploration, as well as individuals navigating eating disorders. I bring creativity, deep presence, and supportive care for identity development; weaving
trauma-informed and somatic practices to ground clients in personal safety, integrity and agency. I also enjoy using mindfulness-based practices to foster felt-sense awareness and self-regulation.When I am not teaching or counseling, I enjoy growing food, surfing, and supporting kids
in foster care with play, art and nature connection.

Maxx Katz

(They/She/He)Mental Health Intern

Provides Therapy in EnglishCurrent Availability for New Clients

A lifelong artist and musician, I bring out-of-the-box approaches and a real zest for authenticity to my work. We’re here for a short time and, if we’re brave, we have the potential to harness the immensity and richness of being together.I strive to be real with you. Connection and growth are intertwined. In our sessions, I seek to create a space where you can feel fully met and supported. I offer personal attunement and a wide therapeutic lens that includes the social and cultural uniqueness of your experience. We will tap into your own knowing and use that as our compass.I believe in the power of presence and I draw upon experiential, somatic, and mindfulness-based therapies, rooted in my 17 years of meditation practice.I love working with fellow neurodivergent people, those in recovery, people who struggle with relationships or loneliness, and artists, as well as those longing to be more creative.I am a white, neurodivergent, nonbinary, AFAB artist from the east coast with a deep penchant for relational therapeutic growth and open water swimming. I am currently a graduate student in counseling at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Meredith Moore

(She/Her)Mental Health Intern

Provides Therapy in EnglishCurrent Availability for New Clients

I am a graduate student in the Professional Mental Health Counseling Addictions specialization program at Lewis and Clark College. My approach is strongly influenced by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which is a mindfulness-based approach that attempts to build a non-judgmental relationship with your thoughts and feelings. Additionally, my approach centers on a multicultural and social justice orientation—meaning that our conversations will include your cultural identities and social locations as well as the broader contexts of your lived experience.I believe that you are the expert of your own experience. I hope to create a space where you feel safe, cared for, respected, and welcomed to explore deeper layers of that experience. I believe that change occurs when we can create a compassionate relationship with all parts of ourselves. Through an integrative approach, I will encourage clients to create meaningful change by embracing uncertainty, fostering psychological flexibility, and promoting the embodiment of their authentic selves.My core areas of interests are working with the Queer community, PTSD and complex trauma, OCD, and anxiety disorders.I identify as a white, cis-gendered, lesbian woman. I enjoy spending my free time gardening, playing with my two cats, and watching and playing basketball.

Megha Angros

(She/Her)Professional Counselor Associate

Provides Therapy in English and HindiCurrent Availability for New Couples and Individual Clients

Hi there, and welcome! It takes a lot of courage to reach out for support, and I'm genuinely glad you're here, even if you're just looking around. My aim is to offer a compassionate and collaborative therapeutic experience that's uniquely tailored to you. I utilize Somatic, Humanistic, Mindfulness-Based, Parts Work (IFS), and Trauma-Informed approaches, creating a safe space where you feel deeply seen and heard. It's incredibly important to me that your background, experiences, and identities are honored through culturally responsive and affirming care.I believe every person is inherently whole, though stress and challenges can make us feel disconnected. In our sessions, we'll strengthen your mind-body connection, helping you rediscover your inner resilience to thrive and feel more connected to yourself and others. We'll develop practical skills to navigate challenging situations, re-establish loving relationships, and access your unique abilities.I love working with individuals and couples from varied backgrounds, especially BIPOC, historically marginalized, immigrant, and LGBTQIA+ identities. I support clients facing depression, anxiety, negative self-talk, grief, loss, abuse, trauma, life transitions, relationship or identity/self-worth issues. I'm passionate about helping you break old patterns, develop emotional regulation, and set healthy boundaries that honor your needs. If this resonates, know you're not alone, and I would be honored to support your unique healing journey.I am a cis woman of color with South Asian Indian roots, holding a Master’s Degree in Counseling from Portland State University, specializing in relationship and family therapy. Outside of work, I find joy in music, gardening, and practices like chakra balancing, and meditation which inform my holistic perspective.I look forward to supporting your growth toward greater peace, confidence, and fulfillment.To initiate therapy services with Megha, please contact her directly: megha.ptp@sakshamcounseling.com

Gretchen Stolte

(She/They)Professional Counselor Associate

Provides Therapy in EnglishCurrent Availability for New Couples and Individual Clients

Hello! I am a White, queer, person born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and a recent graduate of Portland State University's Masters Degree program in counseling, with a specialization in clinical mental health counseling.I am passionate about supporting individuals and partnerships and as they navigate complex challenges, and I am committed to creating an authentic container of curiosity and non-judgement in session. Prior to entering the field of counseling, I accumulated over a decade of diverse concurrent work in the fields of adult sex education and physical strength training; work that when done in the context of a strong professional relationship proved to be so deeply personal it felt it often offered a direct portal to clients' most vulnerable, raw, and dynamic selves. Drawing from this background I aim to meet people where they are, conceptualizing individuals as both inherently powerful and intricately influenced by systems at play in their lives from all levels. I specialize in the support of untangling complicated emotions, beliefs, and patterns about sexuality and relationship styles, creating space to unpack and bolster relationships between mind and body, eating and body image concerns tied to trauma and attachment, and intra/interpersonal attunement. In work with individuals and relationship groups, I am experienced in conversations centering around non-traditional relationship structures including non-monogamy, polyamory, and kink-centric/power-exchange relationships.I am committed to continuing my own education, and I am engaged in the continued work of having an actively anti-racist and non-oppressive practice rooted in gender and racial justice. I look forward to digging in with you in counseling that celebrates your strengths, acknowledging that we each hold deep truths and understandings about our own lives, and sometimes we just need a bit of assistance accessing and sorting through them.To initiate therapy services with Gretchen, please contact her directly: gretchenleighstolte@pm.me

Alexa Adams

(She/Her)Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

Provides Therapy in EnglishNo Current Availability

Hi! I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. I received my master’s in marriage, couples, and family therapy through Lewis and Clark College. I focus on working with couples/relationships and individuals. As a couples therapist, I specialize in working with how trauma and complex PTSD interacts with and impacts the couple dynamic.I root myself into emotionally focused therapy (EFT) to ground and guide my work. This model has a focus on relational patterns and attachment wounds that may be contributing to these patterns. As well as EFT, I may use narrative, structural, strategic, feminist, and/or Internal Family Systems/Parts Work. I bring in and welcome creativity and imagination during sessions in order to expand and deepen awareness and understanding within the therapy session.I am an able-bodied, white, heterosexual, cisgender female. I grew up in a lower class household; during my childhood there was a period of time when my family experienced housing instability and houselessness. This time period does not get discussed in my family of origin, and created a space of shame and internalized classism within myself. Throughout my life, I have experienced a world that looks like me and is catered toward my experiences as a white, cisgender, and heterosexual person.I am currently in a two income household and identify myself as lower to middle class. I am in an Inter-cultural, monogamous marriage to a Mexican-American man. We do not have children, but do have 3 cats.To initiate therapy services with Alexa, please contact her directly: alexaa@intandemcounselingpdx.com

Bree Koenig

(She/Her)Licensed Professional Counselor

Provides Therapy in EnglishNo Current Availability

I believe that everyone deserves an opportunity to foster an understanding of their own mental health and create insight into what is needed in order to build healthy, personalized approaches to self-care, coping, and communication. Building this type of self-awareness and reaching the point of implementing these skills is often daunting, so connecting with a therapist to support you in processing through these experiences will help lead to feeling genuine change.My approach to therapy incorporates person-centered, psychodynamic, and relational modalities that enable us to explore lifelong, underlying patterns of thinking and behavior in a safe and connected environment. My therapeutic style allows me to hold sensitivity towards your emotional and cognitive state while empowering us to access insights into what experiences and beliefs have impacted your wellbeing. With these insights we will explore the most effective forms of coping and change that will be most beneficial to your personal needs.I hold a Master of Science degree in Clinical Psychology from San Francisco State University. I have experience in providing therapy for young to middle-aged adults from various backgrounds of ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and socioeconomic status. My focus is to work with adult individuals struggling with perfectionism, high sensitivity (HSPs), developmental and attachment trauma, anxiety, and depression.To initiate therapy services with Bree, please contact her directly: bree@aylacounselingandwellness.com

Sawyer Salameh, LPC

(They/Them)Licensed Professional Counselor
Clinical Supervisor

I am so excited to be in a place where I can help clinicians grow and explore. The journey to become a therapist is way bigger than I ever imagined. I feel so lucky to be on this journey myself and learning new things. I had no idea how much personal growth I was in for when I started and now, I get to support other clinicians while they expand into themselves and learn. In understand how big of an undertaking this is for clinicians, I hope to create a space to grow and challenge one’s self without judgement, but rather with curiosity. The more we can learn about ourselves the more we can expand with our clients. I believe learning is about making mistake with openness and growing with new knowledge.I will ask you to connect with your body to gain a larger understanding of yourself and your relationship with your clients. I will help you focus on your client’s relationship to their body, what comes up for you in yours when in session, inner child work and healing, and holding the complexity of everything we create in this world.

Roza Skenderova, LPC

(She/They)Licensed Professional Counselor
Clinical Supervisor

As counselors, our own selves (bodies, minds, hearts) are the tools of our work. Good support in growing our therapist self and sharpening our skillsets can provide opportunity to create deeply meaningful and sustainable work for oneself and our own clients. My supervision style is relational, emotionally attuned and guided by social justice principles. I am predominantly somatically trained (Neo-Reichian Therapy), draw on attachment theory, gestalt and work with trauma and developmental trauma with queer and trans individuals.My hope is that we can create a trusting, transparent, and collaborative space that can nourish your goals, learning edges, clinical skill set, interests and excitements in the vast field of therapy.

Kalpana Krishnamurthy

(She/Her)Professional Counselor Associate
BIPOC Supervisor

Being a new counselor is strange times. We want to be there for our clients, even as we balance learning the paperwork, clinical notes, diagnosing, and the questions about what to do or say in the room. As a support person for emerging clinicians, I bring deep respect for your instincts and intuition. I strive to help you trust your own response to clients, to authentically share from your own experience, and to understand how your experiences shape the conversation. In my own practice, a multicultural lens is critical in my work and as a supervisor I seek to create space that ensures clinicians locate themselves and clients within structural and historical context(s). I bring humor, sarcasm, and swear words to supervision and welcome yours in return.

Bree Koenig, LPC

(She/Her)Office Administrator

I am honored to connect with you as the first line of contact and compassion at Portland Therapy Project. As the dedicated office administrator, my mission is to ensure that every interaction with our center is infused with warmth and efficiency. Beyond my administrative role, I am equally passionate about my work as a psychotherapist in private practice. With a commitment to fostering emotional well-being, I support clients through various life challenges, providing guidance for self-discovery and growth. My dual roles allow me to seamlessly blend administrative expertise with therapeutic insight, creating a holistic and nurturing environment within Portland Therapy Project. It is my privilege to be a part of your transformative experience.For more information on Bree, please visit her psychotherapy practice website:
aylacounselingandwellness.com

Tu Tran

www.truehearttherapy.com/tu-tran/

Janay Wright

janay@solid-ground-counseling.com

Sara Jannette Sutter

portlandtherapycenter.com/sara-jannette-sutter

Kalpana Krishnamurthy

knowfeelingstherapy.com

Kapu Dancel

braveassscaredycat.com

Tate Sprite

tatesprite.net

Katya Stark

starkcounseling.com

ISABEL GRUSKA MCCUNE

isabelmccune.com

Anya Ludwig

bowerbirdwellness.com

Rose Novak

rosenovakcounseling.clientsecure.me

Katie Solomon

KatieSolomonCounseling@proton.me