Trauma-informed Somatic Therapy: Portland to Seattle

Soma Roots Therapy specializes in working with trans, nonbinary, queer, neurodivergent, and other communities that systems have worked overtime to make vulnerable (we see you, and we see the overtime). As a practice, we are affirming, trauma-informed, and grounded in radical acceptance and decolonial practices — which is our way of saying: you don't have to translate yourself for us, explain why your existence is valid, or pre-apologize for taking up space. We already know, and we're glad you're here.

Less than you might fear, and more than a worksheet. There's no couch, no clipboard, no one quietly diagnosing you from across the room while nodding.

Because the work is somatic, we pay attention to your body as much as your story — not to "fix" it, but because your nervous system has been keeping receipts your thinking mind hasn't gotten around to or doesn’t know are safe to read yet. That might look like slowing down, noticing what happens when you say the hard thing out loud, or naming the moment your shoulders climb toward your ears. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we get quiet. Sometimes you cry, sometimes you laugh at how absurd it is that you're crying. All of it counts.

We also name the water we're swimming in. So much of what gets called "personal dysfunction" is a reasonable response to systems that were never built with your body, your gender, your neurotype, or your ancestors in mind. You won't be asked to optimize yourself into a more productive cog. You'll be invited to come back to your body and figure out what you actually need — on your own timeline, not capitalism's.

Practically: sessions are 55 minutes, over telehealth (I'm licensed in Oregon and Washington), on a secure platform called Jane. You can be on your own couch, in your own space, with your own snacks and your own dog judging you gently from the corner.

Soma Roots Therapy offers a free 20-minute consultation — think of it less like an audition and more like a "let's see if this feels right" conversation, because honestly, it should feel right (therapy is hard enough without also wondering if your therapist secretly hates your vibe). This is your chance to ask questions, get a feel for how we work, and share anything that matters to you — accessibility needs, identity-specific stuff, "I have three cats and they will absolutely be on camera," whatever's relevant. Every inquiry is handled with warmth, privacy, and respect, no exceptions and no asterisks.

Somatic therapy just means we don't leave your body out of the conversation. Most of us were trained to live from the neck up — to think our way out of feelings and treat the body as inconvenient luggage we're dragging between meetings. Somatic work invites the rest of you back into the room.

In practice, that means paying attention to sensation, breath, tension, and the small signals your body sends before your words catch up. Your nervous system remembers things your narrative has politely filed away, and it tends to tell the truth. We're not doing this to "fix" your body — we're doing it because your body has been carrying the weight of a lot of things (including systems that were never built for it), and it deserves a say.

And no — you do not need to be "good" at body stuff. There is no such thing. Nobody is failing at having a body. If you're chronically disconnected from yours, numb, dissociated, or you read the word "sensation" and felt a low-grade dread — you're not disqualified, you're exactly who this work is for. We go slow. We start wherever you actually are, not where some wellness influencer says you should be. You don't have to feel anything on command, sit in lotus position, or announce that you're "holding space." You just have to show up in the body you've got.

Traditional talk therapy often focuses on thoughts, emotions, and insight — the stuff happening above the neck. Somatic therapy zooms out to include what's happening in the rest of you too: tension, activation, shutdown, breath, and the nervous system patterns running quietly in the background (often without an invitation). Soma Roots Therapy is rooted in Gestalt, Internal Family Systems, and somatic trauma therapies — approaches that help our clients build a real, working relationship with the wisdom of their body, instead of just thinking really hard about it and hoping that's enough.

Somatic therapy can be helpful for trauma, chronic stress, anxiety, nervous system dysregulation, identity-related stress, and the toll of living in systems that were never built with your wellbeing in mind. If you've ever thought "I understand why I do this, I just... still do it" — that's usually a sign that insight alone isn't going to get you all the way there, and that's where the body comes in. Because Soma Roots Therapy centers trauma-informed, body-aware care, this approach can be especially supportive if you've done the talk-therapy thing, can recite your patterns like a TED Talk, and are ready for something that actually shifts how your nervous system responds — not just how well you can explain it.

Yes — and I do it without making you jump through a single flaming hoop to prove you're "really" trans, nonbinary, or exactly who you already know yourself to be.

I provide WPATH-informed assessments and letters for gender-affirming surgeries, and my approach is explicitly anti-gatekeeping. You are the authority on your own gender. My job is not to interrogate or grant permission; it's to walk alongside you, understand your goals, make sure you have the information you need, and write an honest, thorough letter that gets you where you're going. No pathologizing. No "are you sure?" served with a side of suspicion.

If you're coming in specifically for an assessment, reach out and we'll talk about what the process looks like, timelines, and cost (sliding scale is available). Gender euphoria is a legitimate destination — not a reward you have to suffer your way toward.

It's the heart of the work, but no — "one person, one hour, repeat forever" was never the whole plan.

Right now, alongside individual therapy, I offer Body Trust®-informed work for folks untangling themselves from diet culture and the belief that their body is a lifelong renovation project, and gender-affirming surgery assessments (the anti-gatekeeping kind — see above).

Group work is coming in 2027. Groups are where a lot of the real medicine lives, because so much of what wounds us happens in relationship and community — and so much of what heals us does too. Liberation was never meant to be a solo sport.

There's also The Inked Therapist podcast if you like your clinical insight with fewer copays, and I supervise pre-licensed associates in Oregon and Washington — so if you work with one of my supervisees, you're getting care that's held by more than one set of hands.

One note on who I don't work with: my practice is for adults, and I'm licensed in Oregon and Washington. If you're outside those states, I'm not the right fit legally, but I'm happy to point you toward resources that are.

Yes — Soma Roots Therapy offers telehealth options, which means therapy happens wherever you are (couch, car in the driveway when you need five extra minutes, blanket fort, all valid). The one catch: you need to be physically located in Oregon or Washington at the time of your session — that's a legal thing, not a vibes thing, so even if your heart is in Portland but your body is on a beach in Mexico, we'll have to wait until you're back in-state.

Yes. I work with adults all over Portland, entirely through telehealth. That means no fighting your way across the bridges to a physical office; we meet over secure video, and your "waiting room" is wherever you already feel comfortable. Whether you're in the Pearl, out in Gresham, over in St. Johns, or technically-Portland-but-really-Beaverton, if you're an Oregon resident, we can work together. I'm licensed across Oregon, so your zip code within the metro doesn't matter, only that you're in the state during our sessions.

Absolutely. I see Seattle-area adults via telehealth, so there's no commute across town and no circling for parking near a clinic. Just secure video from wherever you are. Capitol Hill, Ballard, the far side of the lake in Bellevue, down in Tacoma—it's all the same to me, because I'm licensed throughout Washington, not tied to one neighborhood or building. As long as you're a Washington resident and located in the state when we meet, we're good to go.

Not at all. And this is one of my favorite things about working via telehealth. Because I'm licensed across all of Oregon and all of Washington and see everyone online, where you live within those states genuinely doesn't matter. Small coastal town, high-desert county, an island, a rural stretch where the nearest affirming therapist is a three-hour drive that doesn't exist. You can still work with me from your own space. Affirming, queer- and trans-competent, neurodivergent-friendly care is scarcest exactly where the map gets emptiest, and telehealth is how we close that gap. If you're anywhere in Oregon or Washington, you're eligible. No metro area required.

Yes — emphatically, and not as an afterthought. Soma Roots Therapy explicitly serves trans, nonbinary, and queer clients, and that's not a footnote on our website, it's the foundation of how we practice. Our work is grounded in affirmation, radical acceptance, and decolonial practice — which, translated out of clinical-speak, means: your identity isn't something we're "working with," it's something we're working from. No explaining, no convincing, no bonus points for being "easy" to work with. Just therapy, with someone who already gets it.

Yes — neurodivergent clients aren't an "also welcome," they're explicitly named as part of who we serve. That means no masking required, no apologizing for stimming, infodumping, needing things in writing, or showing up in whatever way your brain and body actually function that day (yes, even if that's "vertical but barely"). We're not interested in pathologizing the way you exist — we're interested in working with it.

Standard sessions are 55 minutes, scheduled weekly — the classic "therapy hour," which is actually 55 minutes because somewhere along the way someone decided therapists also deserve a brief break between clients (we don't make the rules).

Yes! Soma Roots Therapy works with insurance and also offers private pay options, because we know "figuring out healthcare costs" is its own special flavor of stressful and we'd rather not add to it. For the most up-to-date list of accepted insurance plans and payment options (since these things have a way of changing), head to the Insurance & Payment page under the About dropdown at the top of the site — that way you're always looking at current info, not whatever was true when this FAQ was written.

Soma Roots Therapy invites you to tell us what helps you feel safe and heard — whether that's processing time, captions, written follow-ups, breaks, a fidget in hand, sessions where you need to stand or lay down, or anything else that makes this work for your brain and body. We'll do our best to support and normalize accessibility needs whenever possible, because "accommodations" shouldn't feel like a special request you have to justify — they're just part of how good care works. If something doesn't fit the way you first imagined, we'll problem-solve it together rather than just shrugging and saying "that's how it is."

Yes! Soma Roots Therapy offers clinical supervision for Oregon Professional Counselor Associates and Washington Mental Health Counselor Associates — for those early-career years where you're simultaneously building competence and wondering if you're secretly terrible at this (you're not, that's just what being a new clinician feels like). Supervision here is developmentally supportive and affirming, which means we're invested in your growth as a whole clinician — including the parts of you that are queer, trans, neurodivergent, or otherwise outside the "default" mold most training programs were built around.