About

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Aly Dearborn, MA, LMFT #45462 (California)

I am a psychotherapist that has been in private practice since 2008, when I received my license as a marriage and family therapist in California. My psychotherapy practice is now entirely online and I am available to work with people who live in California. The “self as instrument” perspective is at the crux of my work. This places responsibility on the therapist to do their own therapeutic work so they can best serve others and suggests that a therapist can only take their clients as far as they have gone in their own personal healing process.

Being a human can be difficult and literally everyone needs help sometimes. I have benefited greatly from the wisdom and support of many therapists, teachers and mentors over the years and have found tremendous value in working with therapists who are open about their own therapy experiences. I readily share the gifts they have offered me with others and am a therapist today because I believe in the healing power of this work.

My graduate training at Lesley University (MA, Counseling Psychology, 2004) was founded in the “person centered” or “Rogerian” model of psychotherapy. This approach believes people have the inherent capacity to develop self-understanding and make positive, growth directed changes when they are in the right therapeutic environment. Rogerian therapists are clinically trained to establish the essential groundwork for successful therapy: empathy, unconditional positive regard and trust in the healing power possible within the therapeutic relationship itself. Though I have gone on to study and practice a wide variety of other approaches in the twenty years I have been on this path, the person-centered philosophy remains the foundation of my work.

In my current practice, I primarily work with adults in their 20s and 30s dealing with issues related to depression, anxiety, childhood trauma, PTSD, codependency, relationship problems, addictions and major life transitions. I particularly enjoy working with 1) new therapists and social workers and 2) people in active recovery for intimacy or attachment-based disorders such as sex/love addiction and codependency. While 12-step groups can be helpful in establishing and maintaining recovery, there are many who would benefit from the help of a professional therapist. Unresolved trauma is often the driving force behind addictive behaviors and solid, trauma-informed support may be necessary to successfully navigate the recovery process.

I have specialized training and experience working with survivors of child sexual abuse, peer sexual assault, drug-facilitated sexual assault, intimate partner violence and other forms of relational betrayal trauma. I am also formally trained in iRest Yoga Nidra, trauma-informed expressive arts therapies, trauma-informed yoga, mindful self-compassion practices and certain shamanic traditions, all of which offer tools that have been useful in my personal and professional work.

My trauma approach is primarily based on my professional study and training in the following models:
-- The Polyvagal Theory (Dr. Stephen Porges & Deb Dana, LCSW)
-- Pia Mellody's Developmental Model of Immaturity (for Codependence)
-- Dr. Patrick Carnes Sexual Addiction model
-- Kelly McDaniel's Mother Hunger work for female sex and love addicts
--Dr. Alexandra Katehakis's work for female sex and love addicts
--Dr. Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing
--Dr. Pat Ogden's Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
--Dr. Cathy Malchiodi's Trauma-Informed Creative Expressive Arts Therapies
--Dr. Cornelia Elbrecht's Healing Trauma Through Guided Drawing (Institute for Sensorimotor Art Therapy)
--Dr. Richard Miller's iRest Yoga Nidra for Healing PTSD
--Hala Khouri and Kyra Heglund's Trauma-Informed Yoga Training
--Dr. Kristen Neff's Mindful Self-Compassion work

To learn more about me or how I may help support you through the circumstances that have brought you here, please reach out! I am happy to answer any questions you may have and look forward to connecting with you!