Meet Briana Driver

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Briana Driver . Briana was introduced to us by the brilliant and talented Kara Laudenslager.

Briana, can you walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always felt called to helping and healing others, way before I knew what therapy or social work was. My journey has led me to work with survivors of domestic violence, teen girls who experienced sexual abuse and involvement in the child welfare/legal systems, people living with HIV/AIDS, underinsured and under-resourced folks from the LGBTQ+ community, and finally before opening my practice, serving as a social worker for adolescent boys in the juvenile correctional system. Today my work is focused on empowering women & femmes, redefining mental health care for people of color, decolonizing and unlearning the harmful ideologies that uphold systems of oppression, and harnessing hope within collective care.

Please tell us more about your practice.
What I love about my practice is that it gets to feel like me and it feels safe for my clients to be themselves. I have moms that need to breastfeed during a session and be reminded that they still exist outside of their role as a mother. I have college students who show up in their pajamas and want to discuss how to implement boundaries on Hinge and switch to a major that is fulfilling to them. I have fellow therapists and healers, teachers and first responders, artists and activists, parents and teenagers, all helping me co-create this really neat space.There is room for men who want to get free from the patriarchy and step out of the harmful “man box” that society has limited them to. There is a space for folks who want to unlearn whiteness and white supremacy in order to be the best possible ally/advocate for people of color. I get to talk about things like liberation and spirituality and homeschooling/unschooling and non-traditional relationships and reconnecting with our ancestral ways and wisdom. It’s dope. The space is welcoming, inclusive, and affirming to all folks and aims to elevate those who have been most marginalized and oppressed throughout history.

Kara Laudenslager and Radically Whole have been great to us and I know you’ve got a great relationship with them as well. Maybe you can tell our audience a bit about Kara Laudenslager and Radically Whole and your experience with them.
I came across Kara’s work by chance. I didn’t even know what energy healing was; I just knew that I needed help and I wanted to work with her. I still remember the subject line of my first email to her: “Plz help :)”. After the first session, I felt like someone had come into the dark room I had been locked into, lit a candle for me, and reminded me that I had the key. Since then, it’s been getting more and more free one shackle or cell after the next. I’ve been able to work with Kara on everything from scarcity mindset to self-consciousness to self-employment and self-trust. I often joke that Kara is like Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter meets Jessica Day from New Girl. She has this incredible ability to infuse humor, creativity, and magic into healing from trauma–it’s one of her gifts.

Kara provides a warm, safe, nurturing space for you to unpack the things that have been weighing heavy on your heart and helps you reconnect with your own strength to set them down. Before my work with Kara, I don’t think I would have had the courage to leave a toxic workplace, exit some unhealthy relationships, or take the leap to open my own business. Now, I feel capable, worthy, and able to trust myself and my own intuition. I wish this for all of humanity, and I hope that everyone will book at least one session with Kara so they can start to get radically whole and free!

Website: www.deeplyseencounseling.com

Instagram: deeplyseenwithbri