Popahna Brandes is an M.A. Candidate in Clinical Counseling and Psychotherapy at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago (2025–2027). She is also a Certified Divorce, Recovery, and Transition Coach (CDC, SCTI, CPD, and IFC accredited, 2022) and holds an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University (2003). Popahna brings to her clinical work a background as a writer, educator, and resilience coach, with more than two decades of experience supporting others through transitions and creative pursuits.
My therapeutic approach is collaborative and relational, with trust and curiosity as the foundation. Rooted in psychodynamic and mind-body traditions, I am attentive to unconscious processes, early attachment, and the narratives—spoken and unspoken—that shape identity and patterns in our relationships. I believe symptoms often reflect survival-based adaptations to overwhelming or oppressive circumstances, and I work with you to meet these with compassion, to deepen self-understanding, and to cultivate greater agency in our ways of being in the world. There is no subject too small or unimportant, and no issue too large or overwhelming. Everything matters. I welcome you as the unique individual that you are, with your own stories and your own answers.