Online Counseling in Utah: Finding What Works for You
When you're searching for online counseling in Utah, you're likely looking for more than just convenience. Perhaps you've noticed patterns in your life that keep showing up—ways of thinking or reacting that don't serve you anymore. Maybe you're curious about therapy approaches that go beyond traditional talk therapy, something that helps you connect with what your body is telling you alongside your thoughts. I provide online therapy services to adults in Utah and Washington State, and my approach centers on helping you recognize your innate abilities while understanding how certain limitations might be keeping you stuck.
Understanding Online Therapy in Utah
Online counseling has become an essential option for people throughout Utah and Washington State who want accessible, quality mental health care. Working from your own space eliminates many barriers that might otherwise prevent you from seeking support. There's no need to navigate traffic, rearrange your entire day, or sit in unfamiliar waiting rooms. For many of my clients, being able to connect from home creates a sense of safety that makes it easier to explore difficult topics and engage more fully in the therapeutic process.
I've found that online sessions work particularly well for adults who are ready to look honestly at how their history, language, coping skills, thought patterns, temperament, attachment, and personality influence their current experiences. This format allows us to meet consistently, which is crucial when you're learning new ways of understanding yourself and responding to life's challenges.
Who Benefits from My Approach
My practice is designed for adults who recognize that change isn't about forcing yourself to be different or simply overcoming obstacles. Instead, it's about learning to read your internal and external landscape more clearly and navigating based on who you actually are, not who you think you should be.
You might be someone who has tried traditional therapy before but felt like something was missing. Perhaps you've noticed that talking about your problems provides temporary relief but doesn't create lasting change. Or maybe you're drawn to the idea of working with your body's wisdom alongside your cognitive understanding.
I work with individuals and couples dealing with trauma, anxiety, depression, overwhelm, nervous system dysregulation, and neurological conditions including strokes and traumatic brain injuries. My clients are typically willing to explore alternative treatment modalities beyond just talking—they're interested in feeling and focusing on their actions and intentions rather than endlessly analyzing.
What Makes My Practice Different
Rather than measuring success as the absence of symptoms or the relief of discomfort, I help clients explore and experiment with new ways of conceptualizing what's present in their lives. This means developing the capacity to tolerate uncertainty and respond based on what actually works for you, not what you've been told should work.
My focus is on connecting you with abilities you already possess. Often, what keeps us stuck isn't a lack of something we need to acquire, but limitations in how we perceive and respond to our experiences. I build on what's already working in your life, helping you recognize your strengths and resources while gently expanding your capacity to navigate challenges.
The Modalities I Use
My therapeutic approach integrates several body-based and neurobiologically-informed modalities that work with both your conscious mind and the deeper, often unconscious patterns held in your nervous system and body.
Brainspotting
Brainspotting is a powerful tool that uses your field of vision to access and process emotional and physical experiences stored in your brain and body. Rather than relying solely on talking about what happened, Brainspotting helps you access the deeper brain structures where trauma, difficult emotions, and limiting beliefs are held. This approach can be particularly effective when you feel stuck despite understanding your issues intellectually.
During Brainspotting sessions, I help you identify relevant eye positions that correspond to your internal experiences. This process allows your brain to naturally heal and integrate difficult material at a pace that feels manageable. Many clients appreciate that Brainspotting doesn't require them to repeatedly recount traumatic stories—the work happens more subtly and organically.
Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
The Safe and Sound Protocol is an evidence-based listening therapy designed to calm your nervous system and help you feel more safe and regulated. SSP uses specially filtered music to stimulate the vagus nerve, which plays a central role in how your body responds to stress and perceives safety.
For many people dealing with anxiety, overwhelm, or the aftermath of trauma, the nervous system becomes stuck in protective states—constantly scanning for danger or feeling shut down and disconnected. SSP helps retrain your nervous system to be more flexible and resilient. Clients often report feeling more grounded, better able to connect with others, and less reactive to triggers after completing the protocol.
Accelerated Resourcing
Accelerated Resourcing is a technique I use to help you build internal resources and positive states more quickly than traditional methods. This approach works by identifying and strengthening your natural resilience, positive memories, and helpful internal states.
Rather than spending months slowly building coping skills, Accelerated Resourcing uses specific techniques to help you access and anchor supportive internal experiences. This becomes especially valuable when you're working through difficult material—you have reliable ways to stabilize and care for yourself during and between sessions.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing recognizes that trauma and stress aren't just mental experiences—they live in your body as well. Your nervous system holds memories of difficult experiences as physical sensations, tensions, and patterns of activation or shutdown.
Through Somatic Experiencing, I help you develop awareness of these bodily experiences and learn to work with them skillfully. This might involve noticing where tension lives in your body, tracking sensations as they shift, or learning to complete defensive responses that got interrupted during stressful events. Many clients find that working somatically helps them access and release things that talk therapy alone couldn't reach.
What to Expect: The Intake Process
If you're considering working with me, the process begins with a 30-minute free consultation. This conversation allows us to get a sense of whether we're a good fit and gives you a chance to ask questions about my approach. I want you to feel confident that my methods and style align with what you're seeking.
If we decide to move forward, the onboarding process is straightforward. You'll receive a few documents to sign and an intake form to complete. This paperwork helps me understand your history, current concerns, and what you're hoping to achieve through therapy.
During our first official session, we'll take time to get to know each other better. I'll help you start identifying what already works in your life and what patterns might be keeping you stuck. Together, we'll identify a few initial goals and create a general plan for what we'll target in our work together. I also provide some psychoeducation about the concepts and approaches we'll be building on throughout your therapy.
Ongoing Sessions: What Happens After We Begin
Once we've established our therapeutic relationship, you can schedule your own appointments through my online system, or we can schedule them together during sessions—whatever works better for you. I generally don't assign homework between sessions unless it makes sense for your particular situation and goals.
It's important to know that I don't provide crisis services. If you're experiencing a mental health emergency, I can help you connect with appropriate immediate resources. For non-urgent questions or communications, I typically respond to emails within one business day.
Each session follows a general structure that allows for both consistency and flexibility:
Beginning: We start by discussing the target or focus for that day's session and follow up on anything relevant from our previous meeting. This helps us stay aligned and make the best use of our time together.
Middle: The bulk of the session is devoted to processing—this might involve Brainspotting work, somatic awareness practices, exploring patterns and beliefs, or using other approaches that serve your needs in that moment.
End: We take time to debrief at the end of each session, helping you integrate what emerged and prepare for the time between our meetings. If relevant, I'll weave in psychoeducation or specific skills training to support your ongoing growth.
This structure provides a container that feels both organized and responsive to what you bring to each session.
Working with Anxiety
Anxiety often shows up as a constant companion—that background hum of worry, the racing thoughts late at night, the tightness in your chest before important events, or the endless "what if" scenarios playing in your mind. Sometimes anxiety manifests as perfectionism, people-pleasing, or avoiding situations that trigger discomfort.
In my work with anxiety, I don't just focus on symptom reduction. Instead, we explore what your anxiety is trying to communicate and how it might be connected to deeper patterns in your nervous system, your history, and your way of relating to yourself and others.
Using approaches like Brainspotting and Somatic Experiencing, we can address anxiety at the level where it lives—in your nervous system and body. You'll learn to notice the physical sensations that accompany anxious thoughts and develop new ways of responding that create more flexibility and ease. The Safe and Sound Protocol can be particularly helpful for calming an overactive nervous system that's constantly scanning for threats.
Many clients find that as we work together, their relationship with anxiety shifts. Rather than being controlled by worry, they develop the capacity to recognize when anxiety is present, understand what might be triggering it, and respond in ways that actually work for them.
Addressing Depression and Low Mood
Depression can make everything feel heavy, muted, and difficult. You might struggle to find motivation, experience persistent sadness or emptiness, feel disconnected from people and activities you once enjoyed, or simply feel exhausted by the effort of getting through each day.
My approach to depression recognizes that low mood often has roots in your nervous system, your body, and your learned patterns of thinking and relating. Sometimes depression is your system's way of protecting you by shutting things down when life has felt overwhelming or threatening.
Through our work together, we'll explore what underlies your depression and identify what helps your system feel more alive and engaged. This might involve processing old experiences that continue to impact you, working with parts of yourself that hold difficult emotions, or helping your nervous system find more flexibility between activation and rest.
Somatic approaches are particularly valuable with depression because they help you reconnect with your body and physical sensations when you've become disconnected or numb. Accelerated Resourcing can help you access and strengthen positive states even when depression makes everything feel grey and unchanging.
Trauma and Nervous System Regulation
Trauma—whether from specific incidents or ongoing difficult experiences—fundamentally impacts your nervous system. You might experience hypervigilance, emotional flashbacks, difficulty trusting others, or a sense of being disconnected from your body and emotions. Sometimes trauma shows up as physical symptoms, chronic tension, or seemingly unrelated health issues.
The modalities I use are specifically designed to work with trauma in ways that don't require you to repeatedly recount your story or relive painful experiences. Brainspotting, in particular, allows you to process traumatic material without having to verbally describe everything that happened. Your brain and nervous system can do the healing work more directly.
Somatic Experiencing helps you complete defensive responses that may have been interrupted during traumatic events and teaches you to track and release trauma held in your body. The Safe and Sound Protocol supports your nervous system in finding regulation and a sense of safety that trauma may have disrupted.
For individuals dealing with the aftermath of strokes, traumatic brain injuries, or other neurological conditions, these approaches can be particularly valuable. They work with your nervous system's natural capacity for healing and adaptation, helping you process both the physical and emotional impacts of these experiences.
Why Online Therapy Works
Providing therapy online allows me to work with clients throughout Utah and Washington State, regardless of where they live. This format offers several advantages that enhance the therapeutic experience.
When you connect from your own space, you have control over your environment in ways that aren't possible in an office setting. You can choose a comfortable spot, have supportive objects nearby, and eliminate the stress of commuting and waiting rooms. For many people, this added comfort makes it easier to be vulnerable and engaged in the therapeutic work.
Online sessions also eliminate barriers related to weather, transportation, or physical mobility issues. You can maintain consistency with your appointments even during Utah's winter storms or when health concerns make leaving home difficult. This consistency is crucial for making progress in therapy.
The modalities I use translate well to the online format. Brainspotting, for example, works effectively through video as I can still help you identify relevant eye positions. Somatic Experiencing and other body-based approaches rely on your internal awareness, which you can access just as readily from home. The Safe and Sound Protocol involves listening to specially designed audio, which you can easily do in your own space.
Making Therapy Work for Your Life
One of the principles that guides my practice is that therapy should adapt to your life, not the other way around. I offer flexible scheduling to accommodate different work schedules and life demands. Because everything is online, you don't need to factor in travel time or arrange your day around getting to and from appointments.
I also recognize that healing doesn't follow a linear path. Some weeks you might need more support, while other times you might need more space between sessions. Your therapy can flex to match where you are in your process.
The approach we take together should feel like it's meeting you where you are. I'm not interested in imposing a predetermined treatment plan or timeline. Instead, we work collaboratively to identify what's helpful, what's not working, and how to adjust our focus as you grow and change.
Taking the Next Step
If you're reading this and feeling curious about whether this approach might work for you, I encourage you to reach out. The free consultation gives us both an opportunity to explore whether we're a good fit without any pressure or commitment.
You don't need to have everything figured out before reaching out. In fact, the willingness to sit with uncertainty and explore what you don't yet understand is often what makes therapy most valuable. If you're tired of approaches that promise quick fixes or focus only on symptom management, my practice might offer the depth and attention to wholeness you're seeking.
Working with trauma, anxiety, depression, nervous system dysregulation, or the impacts of neurological conditions requires a therapist who understands how these challenges live in both mind and body. My training in Brainspotting, the Safe and Sound Protocol, Accelerated Resourcing, and Somatic Experiencing provides tools that can help you access healing at the levels where you need it most.
You deserve support that honors your complexity, respects your pace, and helps you build on your existing strengths while gently expanding what's possible. Online counseling in Utah and Washington State doesn't mean compromising on the quality or depth of therapeutic work—it simply means accessing that support in a way that works for your life.
If you're ready to explore what's possible, or if you have questions about whether my approach is right for you, I invite you to contact me through my website. Together, we can discover what works for you and help you navigate your life with greater clarity, resilience, and authenticity.
