Emma Sartwell (she / her)

Low self-esteem often lives in the body before it lives in the mind — in a collapsed posture, a held breath, a reflexive apology. I work somatically and with parts to explore where these patterns came from and what they're still protecting. Rather than replacing negative beliefs with positive ones, we work toward a more spacious relationship with yourself — one where your worth isn't something you have to earn or defend.

Anxiety is often a nervous system stuck in anticipation — scanning for threat even when the room is safe. I work with the body's own rhythms to help regulate that response, rather than simply managing symptoms from the outside. We slow down, notice what's actually happening beneath the worry, and build capacity for more ease. Over time, anxiety becomes less a condition to endure and more a signal worth listening to.

I take spiritual life seriously as a dimension of psychological health — not separate from it. Whether you're rooted in a tradition, estranged from one, or quietly searching, there's room for that here. My own formation spans contemplative Buddhism, Jewish practice, and indigenous healing traditions, and I bring genuine curiosity to the many ways people make meaning and find ground.

Somatic therapy works with the body as a primary site of healing, not just a vehicle for the mind. Trauma, stress, and relational wounds leave traces in the nervous system — in tension, numbness, bracing, collapse. Rather than talking about these experiences from a distance, somatic work invites us to meet them where they actually live. This creates the conditions for something to genuinely shift, not just be understood.

Contemplative therapy draws on wisdom traditions — Buddhist psychology, meditative inquiry, the practice of presence — as active ingredients in the therapeutic process. It's less about analyzing experience and more about learning to be with it differently. This doesn't require a spiritual framework or meditation practice. It simply means we bring a quality of open, non-judgmental attention to whatever arises — and trust that attention itself is transformative.

Attachment theory recognizes that we're wired for connection, and that early relationships shape the templates we carry into every relationship after — including the one with ourselves. In therapy, the relationship between client and therapist becomes a live context for noticing and gradually updating those patterns. Healing attachment wounds doesn't happen through insight alone. It happens through experience — through being met, consistently, in a new way.

Anxiety is often a nervous system stuck in anticipation — scanning for threat even when the room is safe. I work with the body's own rhythms to help regulate that response, rather than simply managing symptoms from the outside. We slow down, notice what's actually happening beneath the worry, and build capacity for more ease. Over time, anxiety becomes less a condition to endure and more a signal worth listening to.