Somatic and Emotion-Focused Therapy

In-Person and Online Sessions for Individuals

Therapy for Trauma and Attachment Wounds

I offer emotion-focused, somatic, and relational therapy for trauma and attachment wounds, and all the ways these manifest in adult life: anxiety, depression, alienation from self, emotional repression, excessive emotional avoidance, toxic shame, and relationship challenges. 

My aim is to meet you where you are with your unique circumstances and goals, help you see things about yourself that you haven’t seen before, and facilitate growth and healing. In the process, you will have opportunities to develop greater self-understanding, comfort in your own skin, emotional awareness, authenticity, and an increased ability to build and maintain healthy relationships that feel good.

I’m a highly engaged therapist. This means I do not just passively listen. In session, I attune carefully to your words and the emotions underneath. I actively work to draw out emotions from the past that you may be carrying and help you to process them. I share my thoughts to provide new perspectives and bring new awareness to patterns in your life. Additionally, I ask questions, look for opportunities for you to connect with yourself in new ways, and actively work to deepen the safety and openness of the therapeutic relationship.

Common issues I work with include:

  • Attachment wounds and unconscious limiting beliefs from childhood

  • Shame and low self-esteem

  • Anxiety

  • Depression

  • Challenges in relationships

  • Grief and loss

  • PTSD (including complex PTSD from childhood trauma)

  • Insecure attachment styles

  • Relating to anger in healthy ways

  • Meaning and existential issues

  • Work and career

  • Developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence

  • Navigating the world as a highly sensitive person

  • Experiences related to visible or invisible disabilities

Clients of all identities are welcome in my practice. I am LGBTQ+ affirming.

What To Expect in Emotion-Focused, Somatic, and Relational Therapy

Emotion-Focused Therapy

Emotion-focused therapy involves tracking your present moment experience of emotion as we explore your present and past experiences. Emotions are central to the experience of authenticity, intimacy, and vitality in life. And yet, many of us, especially those who experienced emotionally neglectful, abusive, or abandoning parenting, have learned to repress, deny, flee from, and otherwise crush our full emotional aliveness. 

Emotional avoidance and repression ultimately create deep distress in our psyches, leading to symptoms like anxiety, shame, depression, addiction, relationship dysfunction, and a host of unhelpful coping mechanisms. Emotionally focused therapy aims to create opportunities to notice big or subtle emotions inside of you and bring them forward in safe ways for processing and integration. Symptoms are often lessened in this process. 

Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy is a way of working together that involves paying close attention to bodily sensations that arise as we talk about your experiences. Bodily sensations are deeply related to emotion. By paying close attention to sensations, we come to understand the way that the imprint of formative emotional experiences from your past are stored in your body.

In doing so, we can access, process, and integrate repressed emotion, and bring awareness to unconscious patterns so they can be updated if they are not working for you. 

Relational Therapy

Relational therapy complements both emotion-focused and somatic approaches. In this way of working, a relationship is built in therapy that is focused on having a felt sense of safety, emotional care, and attunement (where the therapist carefully tracks the subtlety of emotion and body language you may be showing).

The safety of this type of therapy relationship creates ripe conditions for unprocessed pain and emotional rawness to emerge and be soothed and integrated. Additionally, we can pay attention to the experience of feeling cared for and being understood, and this can serve as a template to learn to be more caring and aware in your relationship with yourself and with important people in your life. 

Modalities

My work is informed by the following modalities:

  • Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) - A powerful relational, somatic, and experiential trauma therapy

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS) - A model of “parts work.” This modality helps you understand the organization of your mind and offers tools to resolve inner conflicts and treat yourself with greater patience and compassion

  • Principles of mindfulness, behavioral change, and cognitive therapy

While my approach is primarily emotion-focused, somatic, and relational, I also blend in some cognitive and behavioral approaches when useful. I fit my approach to meet your needs and temperament.

Education and Qualifications

  • Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in practice for over 6 years

  • Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Antioch University Seattle

  • AEDP (Somatic & Relational Trauma Therapy), Level 2 (aedpinstitute.org)

  • Emotion Focused Therapy Externship (iceeft.com)