How Therapy Works Here
Therapy at Elowen is relational, neurodivergent-affirming, play-informed, and nervous-system-informed. I draw from NARM™, Synergetic Play Therapy™, Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology, attachment, and relational neuroscience — but you do not need to know any of those words to begin.
What matters is that we slow down, make sense of the patterns, and build more safety, connection, and choice from the inside out.
My Approach
Relational, Not Manualized
Therapy here does not follow a rigid script. I am not trying to fit you or your child into a pre-made worksheet path.
Instead, we pay attention to what is actually happening: the nervous system, the relationship, the story underneath the behavior, and what helps more safety and choice become possible.
Why that matters: people heal in relationship, not by performing therapy correctly.
Nervous System + Attachment
Play as a Way of Listening
Developmental Trauma + NARM™
Earliest Experiences Matter
What This Means in Session
Big feelings, shutdown, anxiety, anger, masking, clinginess, refusal, and overwhelm are often signs of a nervous system trying to protect itself.
We work with those responses instead of shaming them. That means slowing down, building safety, and supporting repair in the relationships that matter most.
Why that matters: when the nervous system feels safer, connection becomes easier.
Play is not just for little kids, and it is not extra.
Play, movement, metaphor, humor, art, story, and imagination can help people express what words cannot quite reach yet. For children, this may look like play. For teens and adults, it may look like creativity, humor, body awareness, or finding a side door into something hard to say directly.
Why that matters: sometimes the nervous system finds the truth before the mind can explain it.
Some patterns started early: people-pleasing, shutting down, over-functioning, self-criticism, feeling too much or not enough, or disconnecting from your own needs.
NARM™ helps us understand these patterns as survival strategies, not character flaws. We gently explore how they show up now, and what becomes possible when you no longer have to abandon yourself to stay connected.
Why that matters: the goal is not to become someone else. It is to come back to yourself.
The nervous system starts learning before we have words.
Pregnancy, birth, medical experiences, separation, bonding, early stress, and the emotional environment around us can shape the way safety, connection, and protection feel in the body. These early experiences can matter in infancy, childhood, parenting, and adulthood.
Why that matters: early experiences can shape the brain’s blueprint for safety, connection, protection, and belonging.
You or your child do not have to sit still, make perfect eye contact, or perform therapy correctly.
We might talk. We might play. We might draw, move, laugh, pause, notice body signals, use metaphor, or slow everything way down. Camera-off moments, fidgets, pacing, pets, and looking away can all belong.
Why that matters: therapy should make room for the nervous system you actually have.