About Elizabeth
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
IN PRACTICE
A Holistic Approach
There is something powerful about having a place where you don’t have to perform, have the right answer, or already know what you need. A place where you can be honest about what you feel, including the parts that are uncomfortable or difficult to put into words.
I have a great deal of respect for the ways people learn to survive, adapt, and keep going. Even the parts of ourselves we struggle with developed for a reason. Understanding that can create more compassion for who we have been, while making it possible to choose differently now.
I don’t think the goal is to become a different person. There is so much inherent wisdom in you already. I believe therapy can help you know yourself more fully, heal what needs healing, and have more freedom in how you live your life.
Training and background
I earned my master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and completed a year-long Transpersonal Psychotherapy clinical training at Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center.
My early clinical practice was in community mental health, where I worked with children and families experiencing homelessness and supported pregnant women and mothers in outpatient maternal health settings, including those in substance use recovery.
I am trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples and am currently completing Gottman Method Level 1. I also have training in professional burnout, human sexuality across the lifespan, and eating disorder treatment. These approaches sit alongside psychodynamic therapy, attachment theory, and parts work.
Before becoming a therapist, I trained as a birth doula and provided prenatal, birth, and postpartum support to incarcerated women through community-based birth work in Washington State. That experience shaped how I remain present during moments of vulnerability and transition, and how I stay steady when things feel intense or uncertain.
My clinical background spans community mental health, maternal health, and private practice, with over a decade of experience practicing psychotherapy across a wide range of life experiences and relationships.
Therapy services
I bring warmth, steadiness, and honesty to the room. There is space for all of you here: your feelings, needs, and the parts of yourself that may have been harder to bring into awareness. We pay attention to what is happening now, what has shaped it, and the different feelings and needs that may be pulling you in more than one direction.
I am engaged and active. I will ask questions, make connections, and bring attention to things that may be difficult to recognize from the inside. At times that means looking more closely at something you might rather move away from, while respecting your pace and allowing understanding to develop over time.
I want you to feel supported enough to be vulnerable and secure enough to take risks. Many people learned early in their life to suppress parts of themselves, manage other people’s reactions, or stay alert to the moods and limits of those around them. If that was true for you, it may take time to trust that you don’t have to do that here in therapy. I take responsibility for my own emotional life and boundaries. You don’t have to take care of me in order to be cared for here.
Perspectives that inform this approach
Focus on nervous system regulation and pacing.
Insight matters, but it deepens when it’s connected to lived, embodied experience. Alongside insight, I track shifts in sensation, activation, and ease as they show up in the room. This kind of somatic noticing helps us understand when something is landing, when it’s too much, or when it needs more time.
Relationally.
The therapeutic relationship itself is part of the healing. What unfolds between us offers a living context where familiar patterns can come into view. Many of our wounds were shaped in relationship, and it is through relationship that they are repaired.
The Enneagram.
I use the Enneagram as a framework for understanding the patterns we develop to navigate ourselves, our relationships, and the world around us. These patterns become deeply familiar and can begin to feel like simply who we are. The Enneagram helps us notice where we’ve become identified with particular ways of seeing, feeling, and responding.
An attachment lens.
Most of what drives us was learned in early relationships — how we seek safety, how we handle closeness, and what happens when connection feels uncertain. This work creates a more secure base from which you can feel, relate, and move more freely.
Trust the intelligence of our emotional experiences.
I believe much of our inner tension comes from trying not to feel what’s already present. Rather than trying to push emotion away, I help you turn toward it and stay with it long enough for it to move through. When emotions are met fully, they tend to settle rather than escalate, making room for steadiness again.
Symptoms are meaningful.
Rather than seeing anxiety, conflict, or shutdown as problems to eliminate, I understand them as signals. We slow down enough to ask what they’re protecting, and what they might be asking for now.
Credentials
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, California (License #126146)
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Texas (License #205673)
Education:
MA in Counseling Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA
BA in Psychology, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
Specialized Training:
1 year Transpersonal Therapy training at Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center
Resilience-Informed Therapy: Somatic Approach to Trauma Recovery (in progress)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples
Gottman Method Couples Therapy Level 1 (in progress)
CBT for Eating Disorders
Burnout and Wellness Therapy
Human Sexuality Across the Lifespan
Birth Doula Training, International Center for Traditional Childbearing
Professional Memberships:
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapists
Ready to start?
I offer a brief consultation via video to talk about what you're looking for and whether we might be a good match.