Transformation Therapy & Wellness
social justice informed therapy & consultation
Welcome! I'm so glad you're here.
I'm Fievel, and I'm a therapist invested in healing and liberation work in queer and trans communities.
I believe that many of the experiences that we consider mental health symptoms are understandable responses to trauma, injustice, oppression, and environments that do not serve us. I believe that therapy can offer us transformative healing, and that our healing also involves connection, community, and social change outside of the therapy room.
About Fievel Steller, LICSW
pronouns: they/them, he/him
I grew up on a fruit farm in rural Michigan, and I first decided that I wanted to become a therapist at age 13. I was struggling to understand myself as a queer, trans, and nonbinary person, and the loneliness of this experience in a sometimes-hostile environment galvanized me to become the "safe person" for others experiencing struggle and oppression.
After completing my undergraduate degree, I was ready to connect with a larger queer/trans and politically radical community, and I found my way to Seattle. I continue to feel deep gratitude to the many organizers, activists, healers, and collective house members who shaped my understanding of the world and what it looks like to move toward liberation together during the 10+ years I lived in the Northwest.
In the summer of 2021, my nesting partner and I moved with our grumpy old dog to a rural mountain town in northwestern Costa Rica, in pursuit of a job opportunity for my partner and with the hope to reconnect with the sense of closeness to land and small community that I experienced growing up rurally.
The challenge of navigating the Costa Rican immigration system, even from a very privileged position as a white US citizen, has encouraged me toward solidarity work with other immigrants. In 2022, I became a volunteer asylum evaluator with Refugees Northwest, and joined a mutual aid group supporting migrants, mostly folks from South America and the Caribbean, who are seeking to cross the northern border of Costa Rica on foot on the way to the US.
For fun and self care, I like hiking slowly while looking at plants, sitting in the sunshine reading queer speculative fiction, practicing my Spanish, working in the local community garden, and trying to befriend our neighborhood toucans.
My Professional Experience
I completed my undergraduate degree in Psychology with a focus on LGBTQ issues at the University of Michigan, and transitioned into working at a homeless youth shelter and drop in space, where I also facilitated a support group for predominantly Black queer and trans youth. After moving to Seattle, I was a founding member of a group seeking to start a queer and trans youth host home program, with a particular focus on young folks aging out of the foster care system.
I completed my Master’s Degree in Social Work (LW60746141) from the University of Washington in 2014 with a focus on community-centered integrative practice. My first-year practicum was in the role of an adult ally with Queer Youth Space, where I designed and facilitated intersectional workshops for trans and nonbinary youth with focuses on BIPOC identity and disability. In my second-year practicum, I provided therapy and substance use disorder treatment at Seattle Counseling Service, the iconic first LGBTQ counseling center in the United States.
I went on to work in community mental health for several years providing therapy and case management to predominantly low-income queer and trans folks, including in a residential setting for folks living with HIV. The experience of working toward healing with folks harmed by enforced poverty, racism, ableism, and neglect and harm by medical and legal systems helped to deepen my understanding that dismantling systems of oppression is necessary to create the environments in which we can experience mental health and wellness.
Prior to starting my private practice, I worked for several years in a college counseling clinic located on campus in a student medical center. I appreciated the chance to connect in a high-energy environment with students from a diverse range of identities and cultural backgrounds, including international and immigrant students from more than 25 countries. In this setting, I was also able to practice a wide range of therapeutic strategies with students who found that "traditional" therapy was not culturally relevant or helpful to them.
Honoring Land and People
I recognize that all land is sacred and beloved Indigenous land. I grew up on traditionally Potawatomi land, and lived for more than a decade on unceded Coast Salish territory. I reside and work in close relationship to the traditional land of the Maleku Tribe and Huetar Tribe in what is now northeast Costa Rica. I honor with gratitude the land itself and the Maleku and Huetar Peoples, and I continue to learn about the Indigenous history and present context of the land where I am living. In action with this recognition, I make a monthly financial contribution to the Maleku Tribe, and seek to act in solidarity with Indigenous people in Costa Rica and elsewhere.
I credit the Duwamish Tribe and the Real Rent Duwamish project of the greater Seattle area with my introduction to 'paying rent' as a solidarity or reparation action with Indigenous peoples.