SOMATIC THERAPY SEBASTOPOL

We all hear that you ‘just need to love yourself more.’

Something easy to do intellectually, but very difficult in practice. How do you actually do that? I don’t have any singular answer to the question, but I can explore with you what gets in the way of loving yourself the way you want and living life as your most authentic self. My work isn’t about just eradicating symptoms, but creating a deeper understanding of what drives our symptoms, and how we have learned to adapt to trauma, overwhelm, and loss by creating strategies and patterns that might no longer serve us.

I offer psychotherapy and Ketamine assisted psychotherapy for individuals, dyads, triads, families, and polycules that aims to collaborate to restore or create an inner sense of safety, empowerment, and peace. I believe therapy is about creating enough safety to stretch beyond what is familiar into a place of thriving.

I work somatically, incorporating a health-at-every-size, sex-positive, gender affirming, neurodivergence-affirming approach to my therapy process. My somatic approach is not to force you into a body that doesn’t feel safe, but to help you create the conditions for your body to feel like a safe place to inhabit, and to explore the obstacles that get in the way of that. I strive to make somatic embodiment work accessible to all bodies. My practice centers fat, 2SLGBTQIA+, BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, poly, and kink communities.

My work is primarily informed by Somatic Experiencing®, a somatic, psychobiological method developed by Peter Levine for resolving trauma symptoms in the body and helping to regulate the nervous system (more about somatic psychotherapy), and NARM (the NeuroAffective Relational Model), a somatic, neuroscientifically-informed, depth-oriented model aimed at addressing complex developmental trauma (more about NARM).

 I specialize in working with:

• 2SLGBTQIA+, gender non-conforming, neurodivergent, ethically non-monogamous, and fat populations.

• Survivors of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse

• Other forms of trauma/PTSD, including those stemming from childhood, or a history of feeling unseen, misunderstood, or misattuned to

• Body image issues in all bodytypes

• Gender and body dysphoria

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Shame

• Life transitions

• Family and couples relationships (including Polyamory/CNM)

I can assist you in:

• Developing a deeper connection with yourself

• Learning Mindful Self Compassion and Radical Self Love

• Ditching diet culture

• Exploring sexuality and gender

• Creating a more positive, kind, and non-violent relationship with yourself and your body