Meet Aika Shinkawa: LGBTQ+ Counselor for Teens & Young Adults in Dallas

Who Does Aika Work With?

I work with LGBTQIA+ teens and young adults across Dallas  including transgender clients and neurodivergent clients navigating life with Autism. My approach is Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Here’s exactly how that works, below.

What Makes My Approach Unique?

If a past therapist ever made you explain or defend your identity before they’d actually listen, I want you to know that I do this differently. In our work together, your voice leads — your identity isn’t a topic we tiptoe around, you, your hopes from our work together & how you define yourself is our starting point.

I trained specifically in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, which means I don’t spend our sessions cataloguing everything that’s wrong I ask what’s already working, even in small ways, and we build from there:

• Identify your best hopes
• Discover & identify what’s already working in your life.
• Discover small, achievable steps toward meaningful change.
• See progress faster than you may have expected.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy doesn’t skip over pain, it treats you as the expert in your  life, seeks your already present strengths, resources & resiliencies, and asks what’s already working, even in small ways. It’s typically shorter-term than traditional talk therapy, which is part of why it suits clients looking for momentum rather than open-ended processing.

My primary training is Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, and I apply it deliberately with neurodivergent clients pacing questions around how an Autism Spectrum client actually processes change, not around a script built for neurotypical clients.

See the full range of services Dallas Rainbow Counseling offers.