You've gotten very good at being who everyone needs you to be.
Relational Therapy | Childhood Trauma Therapist in Lynnwood, WA
There's a version of you that shows up everywhere — agreeable, composed, careful. You didn't come here because something broke. You came because something opened.
You've learned to read the room before you speak. To soften what you actually think. To swallow the thing you wanted to say and replace it with something safer, something easier, something that keeps the peace.
It works. People like you. Things stay smooth.
And somewhere underneath all of that, you have absolutely no idea who you actually are.
This is what childhood trauma does. Not always in the ways that make the highlight reel of what trauma "looks like" — the obvious stuff, the dramatic stuff. Sometimes it looks like being the person everyone can count on. The one who never causes a scene. The one who people-pleases and over-explains and apologises before they've even done anything wrong. The one whose anxiety lives in the gap between what they feel and what they're allowed to say.
Relational therapy is where that version of you finally gets to rest.
RELATIONAL THERAPY
Where The Process is the Healing
Most therapy focuses on the content — what happened to you, the story, the events, the history.
Relational therapy focuses on the process. How you show up. What happens between us in the room. The way you might hedge before making a point. The way you check my face to see if I'm still approving. The way you apologise for taking up space, right here, in a room you're paying for.
That's not incidental. That's the work.
Because how you show up here is exactly how you show up in your life. The therapy room is a microcosm — a safe, contained space where your patterns get to be visible, get to be named, and most importantly, get to change.
You don't have to excavate your entire past to do this work. You just have to be willing to be honest about what's happening right now, in this room, between us.
I will be honest with you. Not brutal, not clinical — honest. And I'm going to ask you to be honest with me too.
THE PARTS OF BECOMING YOURSELF
“Signal”
There are two parts to becoming yourself.
The first is knowing your signal.
Most people who've spent years performing, people-pleasing, and making themselves palatable have lost track of what they actually think, feel, want, and need. Not the big existential stuff — the small stuff too. What do you actually like? Not what you're supposed to like, not what fits the version of you that everyone knows. What flavour of ice cream do you genuinely want, not the one that feels least demanding to order? What kind of movement makes your body feel alive, not the one that's most impressive to mention? How do you actually want your days to feel? How do you want to be spoken to? What are you no longer willing to accept?
These aren't small questions dressed up as small questions. They're the foundation of everything.
The second part is living your signal — letting people actually see who you are.
And this is where it gets real, because when you stop performing and start being, you will disappoint some people. You will disagree with people you used to automatically agree with. You will say the thing instead of the safe version of the thing. Some people will find that confronting.
That's not a sign something's gone wrong. That's a sign you've become real.
In the therapy room, this is where the most alive work happens. When you stop telling me what you think I want to hear and start telling me what's actually true — that's the moment everything opens up. That's the moment we're both working with something real.
Here's an honest breakdown so you can feel into what fits.
TWO WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
Weekly or every-other-week therapy
Some people come to therapy wanting consistent rhythm — a held space that becomes part of how they move through their life. You come in, something's alive that week, we work with it. Over time the layers reveal themselves naturally, and the relationship we build becomes its own container for healing. Regular sessions are $400 for 90 minutes or $550 for 120 minutes.
The Threshold Intensive*
Other people are ready to go deep, fast. Maybe weekly therapy hasn't moved the needle the way you hoped. Maybe you've done some of the work already and you're ready for something more concentrated. The Threshold is a two-day immersive — Day 1 setting down who you were programmed to be, Day 2 choosing who you want to be. Some clients return every few months for another intensive, honouring the nervous system's pace by giving each layer room to settle before going deeper. Weekday intensives start at $4,025. Weekend intensives start at $5,060.
*For this kind of work, the intensive is ideal if we have them throughout the year to build a trusting and stable relationship
This is the right fit for you if…
You might be here because you recognise the word trauma. You might be here because you Googled "why do I always put everyone else first" at 11pm and ended up reading for an hour. Either way, you're welcome.
Relational therapy is a particularly good fit if you:
Grew up in an environment where your feelings were too much, inconvenient, or simply not discussed
Have spent most of your life being the easy one, the low-maintenance one, the one who holds everyone else together
Struggle with people-pleasing, anxiety, perfectionism, or the feeling that you're always performing a version of yourself
Find yourself saying yes when you mean no, agreeable when you're actually not, fine when you're really not fine
Want a different kind of relationship with yourself and the people in your life — one where you don't have to disappear to belong
You don't need to arrive here with a diagnosis or a clear presenting problem. You just need to be willing to be in the room with me, honestly.
WHY RELATIONAL THERAPY
THE THRESHOLD INTENSIVE
Creating the Space you need for Deep Rewiring and Change
Sometimes the most powerful way to work isn't weekly. Sometimes it's concentrated, immersive, and intentional.
The Threshold is a two-day intensive designed for the person who's ready to go deep — not just talk about the surface, but actually move something.
Day one is what I call the ouch day. We spend it setting down who you were programmed to be — the protective parts, the performed parts, the armour you built because at some point you genuinely needed it. This isn't about blaming your past or dismantling yourself. It's about getting honest about what you've been carrying and what it's cost you.
Day two is about choice. Who do you want to be? Not who you think you should be, not who would make everyone comfortable — who do you actually want to be, when all of that weight is off?
For clients who want to honour the nervous system's natural pace, a series of intensives works beautifully. Each one peels back another layer. You arrive differently each time, because you've integrated what came before. There's a rhythm to it that weekly therapy sometimes can't replicate — the depth between sessions is different when you've gone somewhere concentrated together.
INVESTMENT
The Threshold
TWO DAYS. ONE CROSSING. THE WORK THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING.
Available in-person in Lynnwood, Washington, with a virtual option available for the right client. Spaces are extremely limited. If you feel the pull toward this work, trust it.
Ready to set down the performed version of you?
This is the space where you stop being polished, perfectionist, and performative — and start being real.
Regular sessions: $400 for 90 minutes | $550 for 120 minutes
New clients are seen for 90 or 120-minute sessions.