Dr. Charles Hoy-Ellis, LICSW

LICSW (Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker) with 21 years of experience. Dr. Charles Hoy-Ellis is based in Washington and works with people who face stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and abuse, and concerns related to sexual and gender diversity. He also focuses on issues like forgiveness, guilt and shame, isolation and questions of life purpose.

Hoy-Ellis frames mental health in social context. He explains that feelings and behaviors often made sense where they began - in childhood, relationships, and social pressures - but can stop serving people later in life. He describes a psychodynamic and phenomenological perspective that looks at how unconscious motives and personal meanings shape everyday responses.

His training includes clinical/contextual practice, which links individual struggles to broader social forces. He emphasizes how socialization and heteronormative expectations can leave lasting effects, especially for sexual and gender diverse people. He notes that depression and anxiety often connect to internalized stigma and the pressures of social roles.

Although grounded in psychodynamic work, he uses a range of practical techniques. He draws from cognitive behavioral, narrative, and rational-emotive-behavioral methods as needed. He does not rely on a single approach and prefers mixing tools to match what a person brings to sessions.

He describes the therapeutic relationship as collaborative. The client is treated as the expert on their own life while he offers frameworks to understand behavior in context. To begin, he asks people to take one careful step and to consider scheduling an initial meeting when they are ready.

Therapeutic approaches used in remote work