Dr. Charles Hoy-Ellis

Dr. Charles Hoy-Ellis is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) and a Certified Sexual Minority Specialist practicing in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. He is licensed in Washington - WA LICSW LW 00009601 - and brings 21 years of clinical experience from both community and private practice settings.

He focuses primarily on sexual and gender diverse communities often described as LGBTQ2SIA+, and his clinical perspective is shaped by more than two decades of research examining how larger social structures, such as heterosexism, influence mental and physical health among historically marginalized groups. He also has substantial clinical experience addressing issues that frequently intersect with identity and relationships, including kink, polyamory, and the process of growing older.

His foundational orientation is psychodynamic and phenomenological, a way of understanding that many thoughts, feelings, and behaviors were once adaptive responses to earlier life experiences, including development and interpersonal relationships. This approach emphasizes the meanings people create from their experiences and how unconscious motives and conflicts can affect emotional and physical well-being.

Trained at the master’s level in a “clinical/contextual” model, he views difficulties such as depression and anxiety as closely linked to social environments across past, present, and anticipated futures. In practice, this often means helping people uncover unresolved internalized stigma related to sexual and gender identity - a common consequence of long-standing socialization into gendered and heteronormative expectations.

While grounded in psychodynamic work, he integrates a range of therapeutic tools tailored to each person’s needs, including cognitive-behavioral, narrative, and rational-emotive-behavioral techniques. He holds that each person is the foremost expert on their own life and sees his role as accompanying clients to explore not what is “wrong” with them, but what happened to them.

He notes Lao Tze’s comment that “the longest journey starts with a single step,” and he welcomes the opportunity to walk alongside clients when they are ready to take that first step.