Personal Statement

Hello and welcome! I am Laura Cutler, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. For nearly 20 years, I have been working with adults, children, youth, families, & communities in the field of psychotherapy & child welfare in a variety of settings, including private practice, the foster care system, & hospital setting. It has been said that one of the most courageous things a human being can do is to enter therapy. The inner world of thoughts, feelings, & body sensations can often feel overwhelming.  Whether you are struggling with anxiety, depression, anger, current or post-traumatic experiences, relationship problems, grief & loss, or any other human experience for which you need support, healing, and encouragement, you have come to the right place. 

My own journey began with anxiety & depression as a young child, which continued into adulthood. As a child and adolescent, I lived in a private hell of anxiety and a deep sadness that I could not understand. Learning about proper nutrition and meditation helped significantly. But it was not until I entered therapy in my mid-30's that I began to see how my childhood experiences and current ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, were shaping me, dictating the degree to which I could explore and enjoy my own life. I loved the therapeutic experience so much, I went back to school to become a therapist.

My therapeutic style is warm, supportive, solution-focused, and based on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, which teaches us to notice & question our negative thoughts & perceptions of self and other in order to come to a more balanced view. My approach also includes "body-focused" therapies including the Trauma Resiliency Model developed by the Trauma Resource Institute and Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), because trauma does not live in the mind, it lives in the body.

Our work together will rest upon several core principles:

1. We come into the world with a brain that is hard wired to adapt. Effective therapy seeks to enhance and strengthen the adaptive information processing mechanism and adaptive memory networks that already exist in your brain and help to calm your nervous system. These adaptive mechanisms support our work in therapy to honor, reprocess, and integrate your traumatic memories into your experience, so that you can live more fully in the present moment.

2. All feelings, negative thoughts, and body sensations are valuable and serve as our constant teachers. 

3. When we get good at slowing down, noticing and questioning our thoughts and assumptions, magical changes can begin to happen.

4. Focusing on our existing personal strengths and seeking to build upon them is the most effective way to move forward in our lives.  Past regrets and traumas are to be honored and learned from, but we need not live there.

5. Good therapy does not need to take years. When we develop a treatment plan together, based on a comprehensive assessment, your insights and needs, and with my clinical input, significant progress can be made in weeks or months.

6. The skills you will learn in therapy with me can serve you for the rest of your life. You will become your own therapist and even share your experiences with others to encourage and support those who are still suffering.

7. Therapy alone is never enough. We must give attention to our nutrition, exercise, work life, need for creative expression, sexuality, and play. Spiritual practices, such as a faith tradition, yoga, meditation, and other spiritual tools, are also extremely helpful in reconnecting you with your truest self - which is always unfolding!

Know that there is no such thing as failure or "getting it wrong" with me - only new discoveries about what works and what feels right to you.  With new knowledge and skills - with a new way of simply being - your unnecessary suffering will begin to melt away. I invite you to experience the therapeutic space with me and see what is possible...