The Expansive Group Organization Logo Title

Reveal
Encourage
Release

01 Our Values

Tender

We’re here because we’ve been there, so we can’t help but to be wholeheartedly invested in your journey. We want to provide you the warmth, validation and affirmation that can feel so rare in adulthood. Working with us will challenge you, but it will also feel like coming home.

Liberating

We’re fired up about your freedom and fight for it alongside you. Always intersectional, pleasure-positive, and identity-celebrating, we have a low tolerance for boxes, assumptions, and systems that stifle your creative healing. We are your unashamed and unapologetic accomplices in doing life-changing, culture-shifting work.

Community Cultivated

We’re obsessed with staying up-to-date on affirming, anti-oppressive language and concepts, and think learning directly from queer Black folks, Indigenous folks, and community leaders of color is just as important as gathering data from research. We believe in the transformative power of accurate information about sex, gender and relationships.

02 Our Team

We are pleasure activists, disruptors, innovators, and creatives. While we are technically a business, we operate more as a movement. Meet our team of therapists, coaches, and educators.

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Vanessa, a white woman with olive skin and dark brown hair pulled into a high bun smiles at the camera without teeth. She is wearing red lipstick, bronze glasses, bronze earrings, and a black button down shirt with white buttons standing in front of a brick wall.

Vanessa Lopes, LAC, CTRS

(She/Her)

Staff Therapist

Vanessa is a queer, polyamorous, first-generation, Portuguese-American counselor who welcomes and celebrates adults and teens with intersectional identities. She is passionate about providing sex-positive and affirming care to LGBTQ+ folx, Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC), sex workers, BDSM/kink folx, and those in or seeking consensual non-monogamous (CNM) relationships.

With experience in visual art, Recreational Therapy, and Latin Dance, Vanessa motivates her clients to find healing through creative outlets both in and out of the counseling room. She utilizes non-violent communication and a trauma-informed approach to counseling, additionally pulling from attachment-based and existential views.

Vanessa believes you inherently deserve all that you desire, and so much more. She is strongly influenced by the power of the mind-body connection and her priority is to provide accessible tools and techniques that inspire individuals to begin a dialogue with their body, learn what brings them pleasure, and embrace the parts of themselves that are begging to be both known and loved

Therapist Identities

  • Bisexual and/or Pansexual
  • Cisgender Woman
  • First Generation
  • Kinky and/or BDSM
  • Low-Income Background
  • Musician/Artist
  • Non-Monogamous and/or Polyamorous
  • Queer
  • Survivor

Client Concerns or Identities

  • ADHD
  • Anxiety
  • Artists/Musicians
  • Bisexual
  • Children of Mentally Ill Parents
  • Complex/Generational Trauma
  • Couples/Relationships
  • Depression
  • Families/Chosen Families
  • First Generation/Immigrant
  • Identity Exploration
  • Interracial Relationships
  • Kinky
  • Neurodivergent
  • Non-Binary
  • Non-Monogamy
  • Polycules
  • Queer
  • Sex Therapy
  • Sex Workers
  • Spirituality
  • STI/HIV Positive
  • Survivors of IPV & Sexual Assault
  • Transgender
  • Trauma

Therapy Types

  • Anti-Oppressive
  • Attachment
  • DBT
  • Decolonizing
  • EFT
  • Expressive Arts Interventions
  • Feminist
  • Harm Reduction
  • Narrative
  • Psychodynamic
  • Somatic
  • Trauma-Informed

“Queer not as being about who you are having sex with, but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”

Bell Hooks

03 Our Offerings

Individual Therapy & Coaching

Work one-on-one with a provider to expand your self-awareness, heal from previous trauma, and develop strategies for thriving. Through a non-judgmental, intersectional lens, our providers will work with you on concerns and resiliencies related to your identities, mental health, relationships, career and beyond.

Relationship Therapy & Coaching

Couples and triadic+ relationships come to TEG both to move through relationship crises and for general relationship maintenance. We work with relationships curious about non-monogamy, working through infidelity, exploring new identities, coming to terms with loss or transition, family-planning, and expanding their sex lives. We approach relationship therapy through a kink, BDSM, non-monogamy, and queer-affirming lens.

Support Groups

Email hello@theexpansivegroup.com for more information about our current group offerings.

Trainings

We provide trainings for universities, organizations, and clinicians to expand participant understanding around gender, sexuality, identity, and more. Topics can be custom-tailored to your audience size, identities, and goals.

Complete this form to get connected!

04 FAQs

The Feels

A tender-hearted newsletter, from us to you

Each month, Casey and the TEG team send out free resources, reflections, prompts, playlists and more.  Sign up to be the first to know about what we're up to at The Expansive Group!

Get The Feels

05 Reach Out

Complete the form below to be connected to a therapist, coach or pleasure mentor. If you are interested in our training or consulting services, complete this form.  

Reach Out

In Session

Our In-Person Office

While we work virtually with clients all over the world, we have an in-person option available to our clients in the Chicago area. Located on a beautiful tree-lined street in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square, we have four gorgeous offices with natural lighting, interior brick, and a unique design inspired by queerness, Black artists, Indigenous artists, and artists of color.

Please indicate on your intake form if you’d like to see your provider in person.