The Story of Growth Journey
A Beacon of Culturally Aware Healing
In the heart of Pennsylvania, there stands a testament to resilience, understanding, and the power of culturally aware healing – Growth Journey Therapy. The story of this transformative space begins with its founder, Nelsery De Leon, a BIPOC LatinX immigrant whose own journey inspired a mission to provide comprehensive, bilingual therapy that resonates with the diverse tapestry of Pennsylvania’s people.
Nelsery De Leon: A Visionary's Quest
Nelsery’s story is one of determination and empathy. As an immigrant, she navigated the complex maze of adapting to a new culture while staying true to her roots. These experiences ignited a passion in Nelsery: to create a space where individuals, regardless of their cultural background or language, could find understanding, support, and effective therapy.
The Birth of Growth Journey Therapy
Understanding the challenges faced by immigrants and marginalized communities in accessing mental health care, Nelsery established Growth Journey Therapy. Her vision was clear – to offer culturally aware therapy that was not only comprehensive but also accessible. She recognized the crucial need for services that were sensitive to the cultural nuances and languages of Pennsylvania’s diverse population.
A Bilingual Approach to Healing
At Growth Journey Therapy, the ability to offer therapy in both English and Spanish is not just a service – it’s a commitment to inclusivity. This bilingual approach breaks down barriers, allowing clients to express themselves in the language they feel most comfortable with, ensuring a deeper and more effective therapeutic experience.
Culturally Informed, Empathetic Care
Under Nelsery’s guidance, Growth Journey Therapy became a beacon for culturally informed care. The therapists here are not just trained in various therapeutic techniques; they are deeply empathetic to the cultural stories and backgrounds of their clients. This sensitivity allows them to tailor therapy to each individual’s unique experience, fostering a healing environment where everyone feels seen and understood.
A Haven for All
Growth Journey Therapy has grown into more than just a therapy practice; it’s a haven where individuals from all walks of life – especially those from immigrant and BIPOC communities – can find support and understanding. The practice offers a range of therapies, from individual to family and couples counseling, addressing a spectrum of mental health needs.
Empowering Journeys, Transforming Lives
Every day, Growth Journey Therapy lives up to its name, helping clients embark on their own growth journeys. Nelsery De Leon’s dream has flourished into a reality, where the language of healing knows no barriers, and therapy is a journey of empowerment and transformation.
This is the story of Growth Journey Therapy – a story of hope, healing, and the unyielding belief that everyone deserves access to compassionate, culturally aware mental health care.
Our Mission
Growth Journey Therapy is an independently owned and operated community mental health treatment practice, providing professional psychological services in-person (office in Philadelphia) and virtually (across Pennsylvania). Our aim is providing the minority community with healing professional psychotherapy services for adult children of 1st generation immigrants (and their parents), BIPOC women survivors of sexual abuse/relational trauma, recent immigrants experiencing ‘culture shock’, and ethic/racial minorities feeling “other-ized”, as they strive to assimilate into the completely new cultural experience that is Western society. We will support you and your loved ones along the path to lasting healing and personal development; as you learn to forgive, to re-establish connection with estranged family members, while taking steps to build harmonious relationships and experience joy in your life. We aim to foster a collaborative therapeutic alliance in treatment with you that is based on respect, support and advocacy- as you learn to show up more authentically in your life- without losing sight of where you came from. It is our mission to send you back to your ancestors, while supporting your release of parts of yourself that no longer serve your highest goals and potential.
Our guiding philosophy is rooted in the understanding that, regardless of where you came from, we, as human beings, are more similar than we are different. We recognize that experiencing relational trauma and acculturation challenges complicate the transition into your new life, and how insurmountable it can seem to reconcile vast differences in cultural values vs. lived experiences (between 1st generation immigrants and their adult children), which often perpetuates patterns of estrangement within families. We at Growth Journey therapy believe breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma within families to be essential- not only for the sake of individual healing; but as a matter of moral imperative for adult children of immigrants to step up and assume responsibility for taking proactive measures to heal themselves in order to avoid passing along repetitive cycles of cultural/familial traumas (including painful thoughts and feelings, often rooted in old cultural ideologies) onto their children. It is possible to maintain your connection with your cultural heritage while finding new ways to make meaning of your experiences, with the help of caring professionals. We are here to guide and support you, as you begin the work to increase self-understanding, to make valuable changes, and achieve transformative growth.
We value promoting a safe therapeutic atmosphere in which multiculturalism is celebrated and honored. Our commitment is providing multilingual culturally competent and trauma-informed professional therapy services, promoting renewed balance and well-being for our patients, fostering the achievement of lasting healing for adult individuals and families from diverse cultural backgrounds. We understand the challenges inherent in the process of reconciling matters of cultural identity (when it may feel like you and your parents are, both literally and figuratively ‘speaking a different language’). We take pride in supporting your progress as you take steps to ‘bridge the gap’ by increasing healthy communication and understanding between family members, re-building ruptured familial connections, and boosting compassion for yourself.
