Hello, I'm Amy

I have worked in the healing arts since 2008. Early on that was as an NLP Practitioner, then as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and finally also as a massage and bodywork therapist. My work has evolved to integrate extensive training in the intersection between mind, body, emotions, and spirit.

My theoretical orientation is primarily person-centered and body-centered, and my work is informed by attachment theory and current neuroscience’s wisdom on how to restore the nervous system to a resilient state after developmental and/or shock trauma. Issues that clients address in counseling include personal, emotional, professional, relationship, cultural, and spiritual issues, among many others. In essence, this integrative, body- inclusive counseling approach strives to integrate a genuine and empathic relationship with the client, mindful, body-inclusive awareness, and a collaborative effort at identifying what is needed to enjoy a healthier and satisfying life. The experiential nature of our sessions will offer client’s opportunities to sample new ways of being in relationship to themselves and others as well as a place to begin to integrate those experiences.

I work with adult individuals, couples, and groups to create positive shifts in areas of life that feel stuck, unhealthy, and unsatisfying. My clinical interests include working with mindfulness and the mind/body connection, helping cultivate secure attachment, healing trauma, increasing resilience, holding space for grief, the ethical use of touch in psychotherapy, working with couples and sexuality, healing shame, and the use of somatic practices, movement, and ritual. I am open to working with individuals and couples of all persuasions as well as committed partners in polyamorous relationships. I have a particular interest in working with those in committed relationships in which one or more partners have experienced sexual trauma that is impacting their capacity for satisfying intimacy. My practice is LGBTQ+ affirmative. I aim to be awake to systems of oppression as well as the intersection between privilege and oppression and to be sensitive to the impact these realities have on mental health and mental health care.

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I am a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) through Somatic Experiencing International (SEI). I studied EMDR with the Institue for Creative Mindfulness. I have completed studies in the Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM), Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), as well a variety of trainings in somatic touch for trauma resolution including Somatic Resilience and Regulation: Early Trauma and Bodywork and Somatic Experiencing (BASE). Some of my specialized training and certification allows for the ethical use of touch in psychotherapy to assist with trauma resolution. I receive ongoing consultation to support integrating touch in a beneficial way. I facilitate family constellations. I am also a licensed massage and bodywork practitioner (LMBT NC #17761). I studied massage at the San Francisco School of Massage in 2018. Additionally, in 2010 I was awarded a master’s degree in Transformative Leadership from the California Institute of Integral Studies. I have studied Brainspotting. I am very excited about the upcoming wave of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and intend to be involved. I have studied with Polaris Insight Institute's in their Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) cohort training and offer KAP. I am excited about one day being able to offer MDMA- and Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy also.