Dear Future Client,

“A burden shared is a burden halved.”

Therapy is strange. At first, you walk into a room with someone you’ve never met, and feel expected to talk about the parts of yourself that are hardest to put into words. That’s why the most important relationship for “doing therapy” is the one between client and counselor. Before we can challenge old patterns or process difficult experiences, there has to be enough safety to be honest, which doesn’t necessarily happen overnight. Therapy is a safe, experimental playground to practice being vulnerable, communicating openly, setting boundaries, trying out new ways of relating, and perhaps making mistakes and repairing. You don’t have to have everything figured out before you show up.

My approach is grounded in Narrative Therapy, Family Systems Theory, somatic awareness, and Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR). That means I am interested in the bigger picture: your life experience, the beliefs you have about yourself and the world, and the cultural contexts within which you live, when considering the problems you hope to address in counseling. It means we will routinely check in with your physical body cues and sensations, so that you gain emotional language to balance out chronically living ‘in your head’. I believe that change happens when we process on a mental, emotional, and physical level, so that our bodies learn and truly integrate new insights.

My background includes an M.S. in Sport & Exercise Psychology from the University of Roehampton, London in 2015, and a M.S. in Marriage, Couples, and Family Counseling from Montana State University in 2026, along with advanced training in EMDR, yoga, meditation (Vipassana), and energy work (Reiki). I spent four years living and working on the Fort Peck Indian reservation from 2018-22, developing a community health education program and helping community members reach lifestyle and physical fitness goals.

By request, I can incorporate animal-assisted therapy with my licensed and certified therapy dog, Fluffer – a German Shepherd/Husky mix with a healer’s spirit. I have worked with married and dating couples, individuals going through periods of major transition, crises/transformations of identity, athletes (i.e. team dynamics, performance anxiety, serious injury), individuals with histories of trauma, anxiety, depression, relationship/attachment challenges, and those navigating general feelings of “stuckness” in life.

I personally identify within the LGBTQ community, and I’m open to all relationship structures, gender identities, and cultural backgrounds.I also hope to expand my practice into non-traditional couples therapy, recognizing that relationship dynamics occur beyond just romantic connections – such as between friends, corporate partners, workplace colleagues, parent/adult child, or adult siblings, to name a few. I believe that challenges with boundaries, communication, self-advocacy, and insecurity emerge without discernment, and that therapy can be a space where deeper connection can be had in all of our close relationships – not just the romantic ones. I also hope to work with individuals or couples (romantic or otherwise) who are navigating political and values-based differences in our polarized society. I believe we all have a deep ache to feel fulfilled in our souls in this lifetime, and that much of our distress comes from feeling misaligned or uncertain about how to course-correct.

Please reach out for a 15-minute consultation call to see if we’d be a good fit to start your therapeutic journey together. I look forward to learning and walking alongside you.

With care,

Lauren