About Carina
A creative journey to counseling
My journey to the field of counseling was not direct. I spent many years working in the restaurant industry and later in early childhood education. They were two different worlds, but the common thread was service and connecting with people.
I am a mental health counselor with a culinary background. I orient towards cooking and nutrition to support mental health and I am passionate about food and cooking. I have been cooking for all of my adult life, but becoming food-centered began back in 2007 when I attended the Seattle Culinary Academy for Bread and Pastries. I developed an interest in the art of slow food and being intentional about procuring and preparing food. I then completed my undergraduate studies in liberal arts, with a concentration in psychology and community. It was then I knew I wanted to help people repair their relationships to food. I knew there were a lot of reasons people were disconnected from their selves and those reasons could be very complicated. This knowing moved me towards pursuing a master’s in counseling. I needed to know more.
During my graduate work, I began to plant the seeds for centering an attachment-based approach. It included conceptualizing the process around recovering the relationship to self. Experiences like multigenerational trauma and emotional neglect, imperfect humans raising imperfect humans, masking neurodivergence, and collective systemic harms all contribute to a separation from self.
I graduated with a Master of Arts in Counseling from Antioch University and have been working as a mental health counseling in private practice since 2021.
When I am not working with clients, I enjoy reading about food via cookbooks, food blogs, and magazines or planning and executing my next food project. I also like to swim, garden, and take long walks in the city and in the parks and forests that surround Seattle.
I believe that our work in this life is not only personal, but collective. I believe in being engaged in our democracy in an active capacity. I volunteer for several activist organizations and encourage people to vote on human rights issues that impact our everyday lives.
“I walk in and out of several worlds each day.”
- Joy Harjo