I received my Bachelors in Communication from Seattle Pacific University. After several years of administration, international travel and nonprofit fundraising work, I shifted directions and ventured into the world of psychology. This venture led me to earn a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I got my clinical feet wet at Compass Health Children’s Extended Care, working with kids and adolescents and then later joined the staff at The Seattle School as a Practicum Facilitator, training (and learning alongside) first year counseling students in couples, family and individual therapeutic intervention. I opened a private practice in 2005. Since then, I have participated in numerous training’s – including parenting my own children! – and have gained significant clinical awareness and learning in psychotherapy, psychology, neurobiology, and the human experience. I have directed extensive time and attention toward applying psychodynamic / psychoanalytic thinking and techniques and trauma-informed care into my work with patients and continue to seek out opportunities to grow and learn in this realm. Four formative trainings include: Clinical Theory and Practice through Wellspring Family Services where I learned the fundamentals and origins of classical psychoanalysis; PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy) which integrates attachment, neurobiology and affect/arousal regulation into work with couples; Lifespan Integration, which is a body-based treatment that helps integrate and heal past trauma and abuse; and EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which is a trauma-focused treatment that helps reprocess trauma, PTSD and complex trauma. Much of my current philosophy as a therapist is informed by my clinical mentors, colleagues, as well as being a mother and a partner, and my own personal work as a patient in therapy. All of this rich work has also inspired my passion in offering clinical supervision. I have the joy of working with Counseling Associates as well as licensed Clinicians who want to deepen their clinical work. I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LH60067824) and an Approved Clinical Supervisor in the State of Washington, and hold memberships with Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study (NWAPS), American Psychological Association – Division 39 (APA), and The International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis (IARPP).
About Paula
