Welcome to Amaru Counseling & Consulting
- A space where every part of you is seen, honored, and held. ✨
“Compassion begins within. Give yourself the same grace, care, and understanding you offer the world.” 🪷 🌿 💧 🫧 💜
Our Approach
At Amaru Counseling & Consulting, we believe everyone deserves compassionate, affirming, and culturally responsive mental health care. We recognize that our experiences, identities, relationships, and cultural backgrounds shape who we are and influence our journeys toward healing and growth.
Our approach is collaborative, strengths-based, and rooted in the connection between mind, body, and emotional well-being. We create a welcoming, inclusive space where adolescents, adults, couples, and families feel heard, respected, and empowered to explore challenges, build resilience, and create meaningful change.
Blending evidence-based therapeutic practices with mindfulness and holistic wellness, we encourage greater self-awareness, emotional balance, and a deeper connection with oneself and others. Inspired by the grounding principles of yoga and mindful living, we recognize the importance of slowing down, tuning in, and nurturing the relationship between mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
We honor each client's unique needs, strengths, and goals, meeting them where they are with compassion and without judgment. Our practice is LGBTQ+ affirming, BIPOC-informed, trauma-informed, and mindfulness-informed, recognizing that healing looks different for everyone.
At Amaru, we believe therapy is more than managing symptoms—it's an opportunity to reconnect with yourself, strengthen relationships, cultivate balance, and move toward a more authentic and fulfilling life.
Our mission is simple: Therapy that affirms, care that transforms.
Areas of Focus
- Life transitions across all ages
- Transgender
- Adolescent & Adults
- Anxiety
- Blended families
- Bisexual
- BIPOC
- Career Counseling
- Codependency
- Depression
- Divorce
- Emotional Disturbance
- Existential Issues
- Family Conflict
- Lesbian
- LGBTQ+
- Life Coaching
- Kinks
- Marital and Premarital
- Migration Trauma:
- Men Issues
- Mindfulness
- Mood Disorders
- Parenting issues
- Peer Relationships
- Polyamorous Relationships
- Polysexual
- Relationship Issues
- School Issues
- Self Esteem
- Self-Harming
- Stress
- Women Issues
- Young Adults
Meet the staff:
Juan Carlos Barrera, LCSW, RYT
Juan Carlos Barrera is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Registered Yoga Teacher committed to providing compassionate, inclusive, and culturally responsive mental health care. As founder of Amaru Counseling & Consulting, he strives to create a welcoming, affirming environment where individuals feel valued, respected, and empowered to live authentically.
With experience in behavioral health, school-based mental health, child welfare, and crisis intervention, Juan Carlos works with individuals, couples, and families navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship challenges, family dynamics, and life transitions. He integrates evidence-based therapeutic approaches, mindfulness, and holistic wellness to promote emotional well-being, resilience, and personal growth.
Juan Carlos is passionate about serving people from diverse backgrounds, particularly LGBTQ+ communities and individuals from historically underserved populations. His person-centered, strengths-based approach recognizes the influence of identity, culture, relationships, and lived experiences on mental health while honoring each client's unique needs, values, and goals.
Through Amaru, Juan Carlos is dedicated to advancing equitable, accessible, and affirming mental health care that empowers people to build meaningful connections, develop coping skills, and create lasting change.
Therapy that affirms, care that transforms.