She Gets It Because She Has Been There

Some therapists understand depression from textbooks. Dez Nunez, LPC understands it from the inside out. She grew up in a community where mental health wasn’t discussed, let alone prioritized. She resisted therapy as a teenager, then had her life changed by a counselor who refused to give up on her. That experience is the reason she became a therapist, and it shapes every session she runs today.

At Axis Integrated Mental Health, Dez works with teens and adults navigating depression, anxiety, trauma, ADHD, grief, religious trauma, and identity concerns. She brings a clinical toolkit that stretches well beyond the usual, pairing evidence-based methods with approaches most providers in Denver don’t even offer.

Can Therapy Actually Work if You Are Skeptical About It?

Short answer: yes, and Dez may be the exact right person to prove it to you.

Dez spent her teen and early adult years thinking therapy was, in her own words, “BS.” She grew up an athlete in a religious, military family in a Hispanic community where mental health help carried real stigma. When she finally sat down with a counselor at 19, she tested him. She pushed back. She made it hard. He stayed anyway, and it changed the course of her life.

This history makes Dez uniquely effective with clients who arrive skeptical, defensive, or burned by previous experiences in therapy. She does not need you to believe in the process on day one. She has been where you are, and she knows the way through. If you have ever felt like therapy was not designed for someone like you, that instinct deserves to be honored rather than dismissed. Dez is the kind of therapist who will honor it.

Dez’s Clinical Approach: Structure Meets Creativity

Dez draws from a broad set of evidence-based practices. Her foundation includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for restructuring unhelpful thought patterns, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for emotional regulation, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) for deeper work around identity and self-compassion.

What sets Dez apart from most Denver therapists is what she layers on top of these foundations. She is one of a small number of counselors in the region trained and experienced in Geek Therapy, a clinical approach that uses fandom, video games, and pop culture as legitimate therapeutic tools especially for teenagers and young adults. She also incorporates movement and sports into sessions when it serves the client, using physical engagement to lower the guard that talk-only therapy sometimes struggles to break through.

For clients navigating faith deconstruction or religious trauma, Dez brings direct lived experience from more than a decade of involvement in ministry and some formal theological training. This is not surface-level cultural sensitivity — it is fluency.

Who Dez Helps

Dez works with clients ages 15 through 45. Her specialties include:

• Depression, including functional depression and treatment-resistant presentations
• Anxiety and panic
• Complex trauma and PTSD, with a particular focus on religious trauma
• ADHD, in part because of her lived experience
• Mood disorders
• Grief and loss
• LGBTQIA+ identity concerns and gender identity exploration
• Gifted and Talented young adults (Colorado’s GT program)
• Teens navigating the pressure of athletics and achievement
• Families in distress

Dez is one of the few therapists of color serving the Denver metro area in an integrated psychiatric setting, and she brings a decolonizing perspective to clinical work that many clients – especially Hispanic, Latine, and multicultural clients – have described as deeply validating.

Training, Credentials & Clinical Background

Dez holds a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from New Mexico State University (NMSU), a CACREP-accredited program. She also earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, with minors in Ethics, Forensic Science, and Philosophy from NMSU  graduating with honors and receiving the George E. Briggs Award for Outstanding Graduating Senior in Psychology.

Her clinical training includes:

• Inpatient psychiatric care at Mesilla Valley Hospital, where she assessed and co-facilitated groups for adults with severe mental illness
• Community mental health at La Clinica de Familia
• Private practice internship at A New Hope Therapy Center
• Post-graduate licensure and supervision through LifeStance Health under an LCSW Regional Clinical Director

She received her full LPC licensure in Colorado in November 2023. Outside the therapy room, Dez has spent the better part of a decade coaching boys’ basketball at the high school level. Her current freshmen squad carries an 84-10 record across three seasons. That background is not separate from her clinical work. It directly informs how she builds trust, develops young people, and coaches clients through hard things.

Why This Work Matters to Dez

“I was the biggest hater,” Dez says about her relationship with therapy before age 19. She grew up in a world where mental health help was not just unavailable, if not actively dismissed. She knows what it costs people to ask for help in communities where asking is seen as weakness. That is what drives her to show up the way she does. She wants to be the therapist she needed at 14. Someone who does not look like the stock photo on a therapy website, who will not give up when you push back, and who believes that healing does not have to look clinical or quiet or conventional to count.

Ready to Get Started?

Dez is accepting new clients at Axis Integrated Mental Health, serving the Denver, Aurora, and surrounding Colorado communities. Axis accepts most major insurance plans and partners with a robust network of providers to support whole-person care.

Call or text us at 720.400.7025 to learn more about availability, insurance, or to book an appointment with our therapists.