Ashley Taylor, MMT, MT-BC, LAPC

Meet Ashley

I work best with clients who are self-motivated and open to engaging with reflection, resources, or practices outside of session. If you’re someone who enjoys learning, exploring, and being an active participant in your own process, we’re likely a strong fit.

My style is collaborative, not prescriptive.

I’m not the right therapist for someone looking to be told what to do, who wants me to lead the session each week, or who primarily wants space to vent without engagement or reflection. That kind of dynamic doesn’t align with how I work.

Some words that describe how I see my role: coach, doula, tutor– and for couples, sometimes translator. I don’t position myself as the expert on your life. I won’t set the agenda, but I will come prepared with resources, questions, and perspectives to support your journey. I may suggest slowing down, but I won’t take the wheel.  I believe in helping you navigate, not steering for you.

I love working with people who are ready to unlearn the beliefs, habits, and narratives they’ve inherited – whether that’s around identity, emotions, their body, or how they move through the world. If you’re questioning purity culture, diet culture, any form of internalized -ism, or just starting to explore what you’ve been carrying and why… I’m with you.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to ask big questions  about family systems, capitalism, societal norms, or how your identity fits into a larger context,  I’m all in. My work is best suited for folks who want to go deeper, not just manage symptoms.

If your focus is strictly on a label (‘I’m OCD, that’s it’) or a symptom checklist, we may not be the best fit –  and that’s okay. I’m here for the messy, layered, thoughtful work of untangling the narratives that shape us.

Sidebar

I have a background in grief work and reproductive health, and while I love supporting clients in these areas, I do my best work when there’s openness to creative expression. That might look like journaling, writing or reading poetry, making playlists, listening to music, making music together in session (no experience needed), drawing, sculpting, scrapbooking, collaging, movement with music, imagery, or even tarot.

These methods are always optional and can be integrated into work with anyone I see – but when it comes to grief and reproductive experiences specifically, I need clients to be open to those creative avenues. I can’t really separate my work in those areas from the expressive practices that shape how I process and support others through them.

I bring a layered background in therapy, music, education, and systems thinking, which allows me to support people across the lifespan – truly from cradle to grave. While I currently work as a music therapist and relationship counselor, my past experience as a teacher shows up in how I share resources and adapt to different learning and growth styles.

Creativity is central to how I understand people and problems. I love integrating expressive tools and helping clients connect with their own creative process – whether in navigating relationship dynamics, identity, body connection, or self-worth. I work through a systems lens, always looking at the bigger picture, spotting patterns, and making space for the full complexity of each person and relationship.

I especially enjoy working with people opening up their relationships, questioning inherited family patterns, or exploring who they are. My work is centered around family systems thinking, fat liberation, and pleasure activism.

Relationships & Intimacy

I show up as a coach and an educator with couples around most relational issues, especially polyamory, non-monogamy, and sexual exploration. I provide numerous resources, offer new perspectives, and share alternative ways of thinking or relating so that you can choose which options and ideas work for you as you (re)design your relationship in a way that allows both people to thrive. I also sometimes step into an ‘interpreter’ role and assist partners in understanding each other’s perspectives. My work with relationships is rooted in sex-positivity and family systems while holding space for the intersectional identities each partner brings to the relationship. I also bring my own lived experience as a polyamorous and queer person who is in a mixed-orientation and neurodivergent marriage.

Fat Liberation

If you are rebuilding your relationship with your body, I attempt to accompany you as gently and compassionately as possible. My goal is to serve as a guide,  leading you towards a more liberatory relationship with your body, movement, food, and pleasure. I provide resources around the fat liberation movement, the Health at Every Size framework, and Pleasure Activism. I may encourage you to engage in creative arts experiences to get out of your head and into your body, where our feelings and embodied shifts actually happen. I have lived through my own recovery with diet culture, food restriction, and body shame, which has led me to reclaim the word fat from an empowered stance and to relate to food, movement, and myself with pleasure, trust, and respect.

Grief

If you are grieving or processing a loss / heartbreak, I attempt to accompany you as gently and compassionately as possible. I often rely on metaphors, imagery, songs, and poetry to validate your feelings or experiences. I meet you where you are on any given day while also offering hopeful perspectives as needed. When you’re ready to memorialize a loved one, there are various music or creative arts projects I can offer. These projects often serve as remembrance touchstones or keepsakes for you to >honor a loved one – including pets, unborn children, estranged family members, or other ambiguous/complicated losses.

Most of us don’t know that there are other options for how we live our lives until we feel through what has hurt us, learn what other ways of thinking are out there, and then start intentionally choosing what to keep, what to throw away, and what to invent or redesign. I think it deeply matters to provide information to others, to engage in lifelong mutual discovery, and to bear witness to each other’s growth and healing; it is how we nourish ourselves, each other, and the world around us. In our work, there are no stupid questions, but I will not put in more work than you on your own growth journey. We will collaborate together and explore as a learning team. I might bring many ideas, perspectives, and experiences to our time together, but ultimately you are the expert on your own life and inner world. Ask your own questions & design your own experiments – I’ll be eager to hear your discoveries, ask more questions, and share more resources each time we meet.

Most of us don’t know that there are other options for how we live our lives until we feel through what has hurt us, learn what other ways of thinking are out there, and then start intentionally choosing what to keep, what to throw away, and what to invent or redesign. I think it deeply matters to provide information to others, to engage in lifelong mutual discovery, and to bear witness to each other’s growth and healing; it is how we nourish ourselves, each other, and the world around us. In our work, there are no stupid questions, but I will not put in more work than you on your own growth journey. We will collaborate together and explore as a learning team. I might bring many ideas, perspectives, and experiences to our time together, but ultimately you are the expert on your own life and inner world. Ask your own questions & design your own experiments – I’ll be eager to hear your discoveries, ask more questions, and share more resources each time we meet.

Ashley Outside of the Therapy Room:

I follow pop music like some people follow sports. Every coffee should come with a bagel or donut. My dog is my co-therapist on telehealth, you just can’t see her.