We provide psychological services to individuals on Whidbey Island & online for people anywhere in Washington, Alaska, or a participating PSYPACT state.
Helping you find answers
We pride ourselves on providing the highest quality psychotherapy and assessment services. We’re here to help whether you know exactly what you are looking for or don’t know where to begin.
Meet Elizabeth & Bonner
Our Approaches To Therapy
Our theoretical frameworks for therapy are in the psychodynamic/psychoanalytic tradition. However, we have been trained in a range of interventions from various modalities. These include but are not limited to:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Structured exploration of interactions between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that produce symptoms.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Emphasizes goal of changing our relationships to our emotions rather than changing the emotions themselves.
Psychodynamic
Psychodynamic theory conceptualizes symptoms as expressions of habitual ways of managing painful emotions. Our particular tradition emphasizes an exploration of the relationships you have in your personal life and utilizes the therapeutic relationship to explore and alter any patterns you find unhelpful.
Motivational Interviewing
Exploring and resolving ambivalence to increase motivation to change.
Systems Theory
Systems theory emphasizes that humans are imbedded within various systems (family, school, work, culture, society, etc.) that necessitate understanding the experience of the individual within those systems. For example, a medical view of depression might explore deficits in neurotransmitters. A cognitive behavioral view might emphasize negative automatic thoughts and behavioral withdrawal. A systems view might emphasize and explore internalized sexism and the impact of disparities in health outcomes on depression.
What To Expect
The empirical literature indicates two things very clearly: therapy works and the biggest predictor of positive outcomes is the quality of the bond you form with your therapist. We therefore believe it’s vital that you feel safe, valued, and understood as one human being connecting with another. That connection is the foundation and engine for the rest of our work.
We like to understand therapy as a shared endeavor at pattern finding. We believe that things like depression, anxiety, or intimacy struggles are not discreet symptoms that need to be fixed but the painful byproducts of our best efforts at meeting our basic needs. These efforts, while well intended, typically cause the very pain they seek to address and further limit our ability to meet our basic needs.
I therefore take a warm, active approach to therapy that seeks to increase your ability to recognize your patterns, identify the roots of those patterns, and explore new ways of being with yourself and others. I often use our relationship as a sort of laboratory to help you experiment with new behaviors in a safe, validating environment before trying them out in “real life.” My aim is therefore not to simply help you decrease whatever pain brings you to me but to help you find richer, more vibrant ways of being in the world.
Locations
Whidbey Island, WA
We offer in person assessment and therapy services to individuals located on or willing to travel to Whidbey Island. Our offices are located in Oak Harbor, WA.
Telehealth
We offer therapy and assessments services to individuals located in Washington and Alaska. We also provide therapy and assessment services to individuals located in PSYPACT states.
Schedule a free 30-minute consultation to see if we’re the right fit for your needs
Contact Us
Whatever type of service you are interested in, I am here to help. If you would like to request an appointment, you can call or text (425) 426-2497, email intake@rootandrenewalpsych.com, or use the appointment request form above.