About us
Grounded in honesty. Built for real life.
Heyoka Psychotherapy & Consulting is a New Hampshire practice built on the belief that good therapy is honest, collaborative, and adapted to the person in the room — not the other way around.
Why we exist.
Heyoka was founded because we kept seeing the same thing: people who had tried therapy before and found it too generic, too passive, or too disconnected from their actual lives. They needed something more direct.
The name Heyoka comes from the Lakota tradition — a sacred contrarian, a truth-teller who disrupts comfortable illusions to reveal what's real. That spirit shapes how we work. We're not here to tell you what you want to hear. We're here to help you see clearly and move forward.
Our clinicians bring deep training and genuine curiosity to every session. We work with individuals, couples, and teens across New Hampshire — in person in Portsmouth and via telehealth statewide.
What we stand for.
Honesty over comfort
We say the true thing, even when it's harder. Therapy that only validates keeps people stuck. We'd rather help you move.
Collaboration, not prescription
You're the expert on your own life. We bring clinical skill and a different vantage point. Together, we figure out what's actually going on.
Evidence-based and human
We use approaches that research supports — CBT, EMDR, EFT, DBT, somatic work — and we adapt them to who you are, not who the manual assumes you are.
No performance required
You don't need to come in with the right words or the right level of crisis. Show up as you are. That's enough to start.
The name behind the practice
Heyoka empathy and the heart of this work.
In Lakota tradition, the Heyoka is a sacred figure — a contrarian, a mirror-holder, a truth-teller who disrupts the comfortable to reveal what is real. But the Heyoka is also something else: a being of profound empathy. They feel what others feel, sometimes before those people feel it themselves. That depth of attunement is not a gift that comes without weight.
The concept of Heyoka empathy describes a way of being with another person that goes beyond sympathy or even ordinary empathy. It is an involuntary, full-body resonance — feeling the emotional reality of another person as if it were your own. For clinicians who work this way, the therapeutic relationship is not a technique. It is a genuine meeting between two people, one of whom has trained to hold that meeting with skill, boundaries, and care.
At Heyoka Psychotherapy, we chose this name deliberately. We believe the most effective therapy happens when a clinician is truly present — not performing presence, but actually in the room with you. That kind of attunement, paired with rigorous clinical training, is what allows real change to happen. We are not here to reflect your words back at you. We are here to meet you where you actually are.
This is also why we take the work seriously. Clinicians who feel deeply must also know how to hold that feeling without being consumed by it. Supervision, peer consultation, and ongoing training are not optional here — they are how we protect both our clients and ourselves, and how we keep the quality of presence that this kind of work demands.
How we think about therapy.
We believe therapy works best when it's specific. Not a generic protocol applied to a diagnostic category, but a real conversation between a skilled clinician and a particular human being with a particular history and particular goals.
That means we take the intake process seriously. We match clients with clinicians based on fit — not just availability. And we check in regularly to make sure the work is actually moving.
"The goal isn't to feel better about the same life. It's to build a life that actually fits."
Ready to get started?
Reach out and we'll help you find the right clinician for what you're working on.