Therapy for Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, and Mixed-Hearing Lives

You shouldn’t have to fight for access in the one room that’s supposed to be about you.

Most therapy is built around a phone call to book, a waiting room where your name gets called out loud, and fifty minutes of listening. If you’re Deaf, hard of hearing, late-deafened, or living with hearing loss, you already know how much energy it takes just to keep up — and how often “accessible” means you’re the one doing the accommodating.

Forest Ferns is a Deaf-led practice. Access isn’t something you have to ask for here. It’s how the practice was built.

What access looks like here

No phone calls. Ever.

Reach out by text or form. Scheduling, questions, and reminders all happen in writing.

Captioned telehealth.

Sessions with live captions, and written chat alongside whenever that’s easier.

Your communication, your way.

Spoken English, captions, text, or a mix — and it can change from day to day depending on how much you have left.

No teaching your therapist the basics.

You won’t spend your first sessions explaining what listening fatigue is, or why a group dinner can wreck you for two days.

The things that don’t show up on an audiogram

Exhaustion that looks like depression

Listening all day is work. When the tiredness never lifts, it’s easy to mistake it for something else — or to be told it’s something else.

Fine one-on-one, invisible at the table

Keeping up in conversation until the group gets bigger, the room gets louder, and you quietly check out.

Grief for what’s changed

Hearing loss in adulthood can mean losing music, ease, spontaneity, or a version of yourself. That loss deserves real space.

Belonging somewhere in between

Not hearing enough for the hearing world, not signing enough for the Deaf one — or growing up interpreting for everyone else.

Who we work with

• Hard-of-hearing and late-deafened adults, including cochlear implant and hearing aid users

• CODAs and adult children of Deaf parents

• Parents of Deaf and hard-of-hearing children, navigating diagnosis, language decisions, and advice coming from every direction

• Mixed Deaf-hearing couples and families, and the question of who carries the access work

• Hearing clients who simply prefer text-based, visually accessible care

Looking for therapy fully in ASL?

Tell us when you reach out. We’ll be direct about current availability and help you find the right fit — here or elsewhere.

Who provides this

Corin Magee, TLLP is an ASL signer and works with Deaf, hard-of-hearing and hearing teens and young adults, in person in Ann Arbor or online. Forest Ferns was founded by Dr. Mel Whalen, a Deaf psychologist, and every clinician works within the text-first, captioned-telehealth setup the practice was built on.