Costume Therapy
At Transcendent Self Therapy, Costume Therapy invites you to step outside “who you’re supposed to be” and get curious about who you are. Using clothing, accessories, movement, and guided character work, you’ll explore different facets of identity in a private, consent-led session with an experienced clinician. Together, we translate what you discover into everyday choices, relationships, and self-trust.
Dr. Berasi created this unique form of therapy after witnessing how so many people become ensnared in the armor of expectation—shaped by family, culture, and society into masks that feel safe to wear but suffocating to inhabit. Beneath these masks live countless selves: the silenced child, the rebel, the dreamer, the healer, the trickster. Over time, these inner figures are pushed into the shadows, yet they do not disappear—they wait, quietly, for the moment they are invited back into the light.
This therapy opens a doorway into that hidden realm. It is less a linear process than a ritual of discovery, a place where the ordinary rules of selfhood can be suspended so that something truer may emerge. Costumes, symbols, archetypes, movement, and imagination are welcomed as sacred tools. Through them, clients step into forgotten identities, embody long-repressed emotions, and find freedom in giving form to what has been wordless. Here, shame can be transformed into dignity, fear into power, and secrecy into expression.
Like stepping into a myth, the work is both playful and profound. You may find yourself experimenting with new roles, embodying archetypes that reveal hidden truths, or encountering aspects of yourself that feel both strange and familiar. With careful clinical guidance, the surreal becomes safe territory for healing, integration, and growth.
Sessions may be experienced as a single ritual of exploration or as an ongoing journey into the many-layered landscape of the self. Each encounter offers the chance to shed the weight of “shoulds” and step into a more expansive, radiant wholeness—an alchemy of shadow and light, where you are free to meet the mystery of who you truly are.
How Costume Therapy Works
Costume Therapy unfolds in a structured arc—much like psychedelic integration work—with space for intention, experience, and reflection.
1. Intention Session
We begin with a focused conversation to clarify your goals and set an intention for the work. Together we discuss what you hope to explore, what feels safe, and what boundaries you’d like in place. This creates a strong container for the experiential work that follows.
2. Experiential Session
In the next session, you enter the heart of the process: dressing in costume or costumes to embody parts of yourself you’re curious about. This may take place entirely in the therapy office, or—if it feels right—you may venture briefly outside in costume. Your therapist supports you throughout, helping you explore emotions, sensations, and narratives that arise as you inhabit these different aspects of self.
3. Integration Session
We close with a dedicated session for reflection and meaning-making. You’ll process what the experience has been like, what emotions surfaced, and what insights emerged. Together, we identify how these discoveries can be integrated into your daily life—through choices, relationships, creative expression, or self-understanding.
Flexible Format
Costume Therapy can unfold as an ongoing series, an adjunct to traditional talk therapy, or be condensed into one extended session for a powerful, stand-alone experience.
Why it helps
Loosens social scripts so your authentic self can breathe
Builds language for complex, contradictory feelings
Reduces shame by welcoming disowned parts with compassion
Complements talk therapy with embodied exploration
Available as a single 90-minute intensive or ongoing support
Who it’s for
People navigating identity, personal expression, life transitions, or perfectionism
Creatives who feel blocked or boxed in by their “brand”
Anyone who tends to intellectualize and wants a more embodied way to explore
Safety, comfort & consent
Limits and boundaries are discussed and agreed upon at the beginning of session, creating a safe container
You choose what to wear; we can work with what you already own
No performance, no audience—this is collaborative, therapeutic expression
Setting intentions at the start and integrating at the close creates structure and safety, allowing exploration to feel both expansive and held