Review of Erin Allen Brower, Counselor, MA, LMHC, CE

Front Street Clinic
2800 East Madison 
Suite #303
Seattle,  Washington  98122 

(206) 535-1382
frontstreetclinic@yahoo.com
http://www.frontstreetclinic.com


Ms. Brower was a straight therapist at the Seattle Counseling Service For Sexual Minorities. http://www.seattlecounseling.org/Services.htm
I will review that place in a future post. It is difficult to separate Ms. Brower from SCCSM, but I feel it is better to detail her personal abilities before tackling an agency that produced her. She makes claims that she specializes in serving the LGBTQ community members, and, I don't know about you, but that sounds like a male therapist saying he specializes in "women's " psychological issues makes him specially qualified simply because he sees women in his practice. Ms. Brower has no more knowledge of LGBTQ folks than a man has about women or a white woman has of a black woman. There may be some understanding, but they can never know what it is like to be queer, or transgender etc.. That is my opinion of Ms. Brower. She likes to help white, financially well off women learn how to care for their babies by hand holding them when they "Bring Home Baby."(See her website). That's a breeder if I ever met one. Yack. I am sure poor women never get her help with their babies, and they are the ones who really need that help. I know this, because I was a professional labor doula for pregnant women for 10 years. Yes, I helped breeders. But mostly the poor, non-white immigrant ones who were alone and needed a kind face and someone to rely on. I know what it means to be an advocate for the vulnerable. Payment, even though I was poor, was not a consideration for me in who I helped. 

You see, the first therapist I reviewed, Mr. Jarred Lathrop-Weber, is also a product of the ill-conceived and misguided management of of SCSSM, a place for newly minted therapists to do their practicum and use the financially vulnerable as lab rats for their self-improvement. In Mr. Lathrop-Weber's case, he told me he hated that place, but he obviously did not use that knowledge to change his practices when it comes to sensitively handling clients who are financially and mentally vulnerable. He is also acquainted with Ms. Brower, much to my dismay. 

So, let us get to the review. I met this therapist after seeing two other therapists at this agency whose names I cannot remember.  One of those two was a newly out of school, and simply asked me each week, "So, what would you like to discuss today?" The other was intimidated by me when I told her, in her questioning what my fears were, that I worried she would not be smart enough to be my therapist. She got pissed when I did not want to do her "homework" assignments and dropped me and I was then assigned Ms. Brower as my therapist. Her therapy consisted of asking me what I thought would improve my life. At the time, I was having career launching issues after attending professional graduate school, and serious problems in my relationship of 11 years, due to being pressured by my partner to achieve my goals and thus land said partner a big financial payoff. I knew what would improve my life, but I could not make it happen. When that did not come to fruition, despite all of my hard work, I was in deep distress, and developed agoraphobia, new symptoms of what they thought was Borderline Personality Disorder, that I did not have previously, and still am doubtful about. My main diagnoses (firmly) are generalized anxiety disorder, and major to dysthymic depression. I am highly functional when my life is organized, my social network is working and I have enough money. As a matter of fact, I am almost symptom free when the money flows relatively freely (don't need to be rich, just enough to do the things in life I want to do and not worry). I have worked successfully through many difficult academic programs and am quite gifted. My physical disabilities have caused me to be mostly unemployable  and my education makes me overqualified for many people in considering me for positions I CAN perform. 

So, back to my review. Ms. Brower kept telling me that she could not help me. I was stuck. Nothing was moving forward in my life, so the resolution of a satisfying relationship and career were not happening for me, so she and her supervisor decided to shunt me off to a clinic that did Dialectical Behavioral Therapy,(typically for people with Borderline Personality Disorder) for very low -functioning patients. For example, they said that "perhaps" I could begin to work after a year in the program. I checked it out, but went back and told Brower that I was not interested and did not think this would help me since I needed to jump-start my career immediately and my marriage needed to be rehabilitated right now. So she and her supervisor, met with me, told me that since I would not go to the program, they were kicking me out of therapy. 

So there I was, vulnerable, no where to turn, and trying to deal with my troubles. Several months later, my marriage was ending, I called my primary doctor and asked her if I she could assist me in checking into the hospital for suicidality. I was very distraught, but rational, responsible and not whacked out. I was being put onto the street, no money, no support, no job. Because my doc did not know how to deal with mental health issues involving admission for depression, she called a number she was supposed to call, and since I was on medicaid, and medicaid assigns a therapist once you are in the system to shunt all your crap to, they called Ms. Brower, the one who had dumped me months earlier? I guess she was still listed as my "official" therapist of record. She called and asked me, "Are you suicidal?" I said "Fuck you!" and then "Yes, why do you care?" and hung up. So that alone gave her the authority to send police and an ambulance to break down my door, take me out of my home against my will, and shackle me to a gurney in the hallway of the emergency room of Harborview Hospital for seven HOURS! No one cared for me, no one checked on me, no one came to see me. I had no privacy and no care. I had my cell phone with me, and called the inpatient psych ward and told them that there I sat, that I was not suicidal (I was) and that I should be let go. They sent out an elderly psychiatrist who asked me three questions and released me. Wow, how well the system worked. I was traumatized, abused, and not helped by anyone. Did Erin call to follow up? No. What an asshole. So much for my decorum on this forum. Do I recommend her for ANYTHING AT ALL??? NO! Not unless you want to overpay an emotionless breeder who thinks that rich women need instruction in how to care for their damn babies, who are already going to be in expensive onesies and an overpaid college education and then come home to live with their parents. And they thought I had problems. I don't begrudge anyone an education, as I have one myself, but no one planned for mine, much less supported me through it. I just am baffled by the allocation of resources. It boggles my mind that a spoiled and well off straight white woman would even be able to look anyone in the eye after what she did to me. And the fact that she worked her program at a clinic for poor mental health clients, and now does NOTHING to help that community is a slap in the face. What a monster. It's not active hate that hurts our community, but apathy toward the vulnerable. Erin Brower is an enemy of the LGBTQ community, not an advocate. Just because you can tolerate a population, and think you know something about them does not mean you are an ally. I was not supported by her in any way and I was the most vulnerable I could be. SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! Erin Allen Brower. You are contemptible.