About Sue Shrader-Hanes, MFT

I began my career in San Diego California working with community based agencies. Initially most of my work was with youth at San Diego Youth Services. I was a case manager/therapist at the Storefront, a shelter for homeless youth that promoted education and I worked with what is now called the Monarch School to help youth on the streets continue their education even though they did not have parents to enroll them in school. This was groundbreaking in California. I worked with teens struggling with substance abuse, teenage mothers and their infants and developed a specialty for school based programs that has continued throughout my career. When I became licensed I began working in the rural east county in 3 elementary schools on the border. School based programs were the closest thing I found to augment early intervention.

For the last 14 years I have worked at Mesa College, focusing on empowerment of students that struggle with trauma. As the daughter of a Civil Rights leader, diversity and social justice have been a major focus of my work. I served on both the City College and Mesa College Diversity Committee since 2007 and continue this work pro bono to support equal rights and social justice for all peoples.

My specialties include working with youth, trauma resolution, addressing the root cause of emotional and psychological distress and eliminating or mitigating symptoms. I am also a champion of Family Therapy and I look at all of my clients from a systemic perspective, helping them see that coping mechanisms, trauma and healing need to begin by looking at all systemic issues that could be affecting the client, as well as trans-generational transmission, or the spill down effect of trauma from one generation to another. I find this key to transformation and acknowledgement that our communities of color and our immigrant populations also inherit trauma from the last few generations.

I am the kind of therapist that is driven to heal and not spend years in therapy. Long term help is good for many therapists and necessary for many clients. I prefer however to move things quickly and heal the client from a multi-systemic perspective so that they may move forward in their lives. This does not mean that you might not need a tune up now and then. That seems to be normal. But let’s get you to a place where your symptoms are decreased to a point that the pain is minimal, in case there are layers that need to be removed.

So, if you pick me for a therapist, know that I am not the kind to sit around and talk about how miserable you are. If you are ready for rapid change, I would be a good fit.