Elijah Eiler LCSW

I grew up in an evangelical Christian environment. In college and early adulthood, I went through a painful faith deconstruction process as I increasingly doubted the faith I grew up with and came to terms with my sexual orientation and gender identity. This lead to experiences of depression that lead me to try therapy for the first time. Slowly, and after finding a right-fit therapist after some trial and error, I began to experience healing. Outside of the therapy office, this healing included engaging in social action and community. I bring all of these experiences into my work with clients. I center marginalized identities and want to learn about my clients' experiences from them rather than telling them what I think I know about them. I recognize the pain that religious trauma can cause, especially for queer folks and folks with other marginalized identities.

I started my career as a teacher. Pretty quickly I realized that I was more interested in my students' social/emotional development and well-being than their academics. While this was happening, I was doing my own healing work in therapy for the first time. These experiences lead me to pursue a Master of Social Work degree with the intent of starting out as a school social worker with the possibility of becoming a therapist later on. I worked as a school social worker and became frustrated with the way that the school system made it difficult to do deep work with my students. I also realized that I enjoyed supporting my adult colleagues just as much with my students. I started working at a group therapy practice and fell in love with working with adults, especially queer and neurodivergent adults who had experienced trauma.

I am a relational, anti-oppressive therapist. My approach is primarily informed by Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, which means that I welcome all the various parts of you and your experiences. IFS is an experiential form of therapy rather than traditional talk therapy. In IFS, I guide you to have conversations with different parts of your psyche. I know it sounds weird, and it can feel weird at first (and sometimes even after you've done it for a while!), but it often leads to deeper insight and healing.

• Illinois, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, 149.028863

Before becoming a therapist, I worked in Chicago Public Schools as a teacher of the visually impaired and school social worker. In these positions I became increasingly interesting in collaborating with students’ parents, which lead me to my love of working with adults. I first worked as a therapist at a group practice before starting my own private practice. I became a therapist because of my own experiences in therapy and believe in the positive impact it can have. In addition to providing therapy to adults, I also provide early intervention services for young children who are visually impaired and conduct developmental assessments for young children in foster care.