Meet
Ria
The Basics
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Licensed Clinical Social Work Associate (LCSWA)
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Works with individuals, couples, and family dyads, ages 16+
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Offers sessions in Spanish for bilingual/Spanish-speaking clients
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Affirming of all gender identities, gender expressions, and sexualities
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Neuro-diversity affirming
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Trauma-Informed
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Primary modalities: Relational, systemic, psychodynamic. Draws on somatic, IFS-informed, attachment-based, ecotherapy, expressive arts, and narrative approaches
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In-Network with Aetna and Cigna; BCBS Pending
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Private Pay and Sliding Scale
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Finds joy in river swims and plant walks, dancing, yummy food, and remembering how to play
Ria Alfonso, LCSWA
Ria offers a grounded, collaborative space for clients navigating life's biggest turning points, from coming-of-age transitions to the quiet unraveling and rebuilding of long-held patterns.
Ria is a queer, non-binary Latinx therapist whose background in farming, herbalism, and land-based education shapes a therapeutic style that is affirming, integrative, and deeply attuned to the natural rhythms of change. Ria approaches therapy in a non-pathologizing, non-linear way, offering clients the spaciousness to be exactly where they are while moving toward greater agency, understanding, and connection. At the center of this work is relationship: Ria sees the connection built together as fertile ground where healing can take root.
Ria works especially well with clients at significant choice points. Not just the transition out of adolescence, but any season of significant change: finishing school, leaving home, becoming an empty nester, changing careers, or simply seeking a new way to move through the world. Ria also welcomes clients ready to explore long-standing relational patterns, understand behaviors that no longer serve them, and heal old hurts as they step into greater alignment with themselves. Ria works with individuals, couples, and family dyads ages 16 and up, and provides counseling in Spanish and English (we are working on translating our website and documents to Spanish. This update is anticipated by November 2026. Until that time, Ria is able to see clients who may be able to navigate these things in English but prefer sessions in Spanish).
Ria pays close attention to how social, cultural, and political systems shape each client's inner world, understanding many forms of distress not as dysfunction, but as meaningful responses to trauma, history, and circumstance. They offer a therapeutic relationship that is exploratory, liberation-centered, and tangibly supportive while moving toward a greater sense of connection with yourself and the world around you
Available Services:
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In-Person: Durham, North Carolina
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Virtual: Across North Carolina
Areas of Focus
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Complex PTSD & relational trauma
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Grief and loss
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Attachment wounds
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Depression
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Immigration and acculturation
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Queer and trans identity exploration
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Relationship to body
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Sex and sexuality
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Spirituality
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Climate Grief
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Life transitions
ria.alfonso@birchcounselingdurham.com
Certifications & Experience:
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Licensed Clinical Social Worker Associate (License #P023985)
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Masters Degree in Social Services, Bryn Mawr College
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30hrs training toward Sociometry & Psychodrama facilitation
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Community Herbalism Certificate, Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine
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Bachelor’s Degree in Critical Theory & Social Justice, Occidental College
Payment
Support
We understand that starting therapy is a meaningful financial commitment. That’s why we’ve partnered with Mentaya to help clients who are out-of-network easily use their insurance benefits and reduce the cost of care.
We are in-network with Blue Cross Blue Shield (excluding ACA plans), Aetna, and Cigna.
If you have a different insurance plan, you can use the tool below to check your eligibility for reimbursement for our services.