“I know therapy is going well when clients bring more and more of their authentic selves.”
- Eric Geweniger
About Eric
I am Eric Geweniger, MA, LPC (he/they), and I am a Chicago-based queer psychotherapist and Advanced Fellow at Bespoke Healing. I chose this fellowship to gain mentorship as a future first-generation business owner.
As a first-generation college student, I am no stranger to the challenges of navigating new systems on your own. I grew up in both suburban and sub-rural communities, went to college in a rural college town, and experienced adulthood and graduate school in the city. I have learned first-hand how much influence our social contexts have over how we show up in the world, particularly for those of us who learned to withdraw or guard ourselves—and I have also learned the power in reclaiming one’s authenticity.
I believe that we as people are political, meaning our lives and experiences are inseparable from the landscape of our larger systems—spanning from the neighborhoods in which we live all the way to our national and global systems. This is especially true for folks in the queer communities, BIPOC communities, and other minoritized peoples whose lives are often the most impacted by politics. Political events impact many aspects of our lives, and I believe that to do therapy is to interface with politics through the lived experiences and histories of both therapist and client.
I obtained my B.A. in Psychology and B.A. in Music from Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, and my M.A. in Counseling Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. My experience is primarily in community mental health, working with marginalized populations and minoritized identities at Howard Brown Health’s Counseling Center in Uptown-Buena Park. At Howard Brown, I worked specifically with the Recovering with Pride program, which takes a harm reduction and trauma-informed approach to treatment of substance use issues.
I’m a bit of a gaming nerd, and I love Dungeons & Dragons and other narrative tabletop and video games. Additionally, I am a member of Common Pulse, a vocal music ensemble dedicated to community collaboration and innovative artistic performances, and I have performed with various other professional and amateur vocal music ensembles over the past 15 years.