Kate Stoddard, Psychotherapist, LMFT #134698

I believe you are the expert of your own life, and I also believe your true gifts, healing, and happiness can be unlocked through the process of therapy. My approach is integrative, meaning I pull from various theories and methods to treat my clients' presenting issues in the ways I think will work best for them. I most often draw from psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theories, attachment theory, Emotion Focused Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, and embodiment practices. I place high value on culturally responsive and trauma-informed care and am dedicated to providing a safe environment for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other systematically marginalized identities. I received my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. After graduating, I worked as a Professional Research Assistant for the Social Psychology Lab there studying the effects of cultural and family level factors on teens involved in the criminal justice system. After moving to California, I earned my Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. During my graduate training, I worked in non-profit and community settings treating individuals and groups impacted by domestic and intimate partner violence, substance abuse, mood disorders, relational and family issues, severe mental illness, and complex trauma. My post-graduate training was in a private group practice setting that focused on integrated wellness and holistic healing through nutrition, psychotherapy, and various mind-body centered modalities. There, I worked with individuals and couples needing support with relational issues, infidelity, stress management, burnout, depression, anxiety, existential dread, creative blocks, finding purpose, and healing complex trauma. More about me personally: I am very committed to my own creative process and am constantly working on moving through my own creative blocks. Creative expression contains a wellspring of health and generative energy that is often the antidote to stagnation and suffering, and I want to help my clients unlock their own creativity too. The mediums I personally work with are music (guitar, piano, mixing vinyl, music production with DAWs, imperfect singing, ukulele, sound collaging) and writing (poetry, prose, free associative journaling, scripts in my head). I love consuming creative works too: FOOD, comedy, theatre, improv, music, film, and television. I have two cats who at some point agreed I was suitable enough to care for them and taught me the secrets to happiness are sleep, sunshine, and birds.