Summar Abdallah (She/They)

Chronic pain and illness are prevalent concerns in every community. Living with chronic conditions can feel isolating, confusing, and overwhelming at times. While therapy cannot cure your chronic illness, it can help you learn how to be with your pain and illness in new ways. I use a combination of somatic therapy, mindfulness, expressive arts, and other therapy modalities to help clients bring more awareness and compassion to their bodies. I also help clients make support plans and toolkits.

I support clients in transforming their relationships to pain, suffering, anxiety, depression, and trauma. Therapy practices that engage the body, including somatic therapy, expressive arts therapy (including drama therapy), and mindfulness based practices can help clients learn how to be with uncomfortable and upsetting feelings in the body. Building safety, body-focused therapies, and CBT/ DBT skills are some of my go to healing modalities for clients with depression, anxiety, and trauma.

I support neurodivergent clients in a variety of ways, depending on which areas of life they would like support with. Executive function challenges can affect all aspects of life, and I offer support with with practical and emotional concerns. For practical concerns, I support clients in creating sensory toolkits, implementing strategies for time management, organization, etc. For emotional concerns, I support clients in learning strategies for building distress tolerance.

I use somatic therapy practices to support individuals in processing trauma. Our bodies keep a record of our traumatic experiences, and unprocessed trauma often surfaces in uncomfortable ways. It is human nature to be averse to the discomfort of pain, but learning how to accept, welcome, and cultivate compassion for our suffering is an important step in healing trauma. Somatic therapy encourages us to shift and hold our focus on the physical sensations associated with our suffering.

I studied expressive arts therapy during my training, where I learned how diverse arts modalities can help individuals process emotions nonverbally. Talk therapy can be helpful for identifying the root cause of the suffering we experience, but processing emotions in the body is necessary for true healing to occur. Music, dance, writing, drawing, sculpting, drama, food, and other creative outlets are some ways we can access body based healing practices.

Mindfulness plays an important role in body based healing. I use mindfulness based therapies with many of my clients alongside other treatment modalities. While so many people live their lives in the past and future, mindfulness encourages shifting awareness to the present moment. Mindfulness and meditation can help us learn reliable ways to notice when we are detaching from the present, and how to return to our bodies.

I support neurodivergent clients in a variety of ways, depending on which areas of life they would like support with. Executive function challenges can affect all aspects of life, and I offer support with with practical and emotional concerns. For practical concerns, I support clients in creating sensory toolkits, implementing strategies for time management, organization, etc. For emotional concerns, I support clients in learning strategies for building distress tolerance.

I support clients in transforming their relationships to pain, suffering, anxiety, depression, and trauma. Therapy practices that engage the body, including somatic therapy, expressive arts therapy (including drama therapy), and mindfulness based practices can help clients learn how to be with uncomfortable and upsetting feelings in the body. Building safety, body-focused therapies, and CBT/ DBT skills are some of my go to healing modalities for clients with depression, anxiety, and trauma.