Vanessa Tate (she/her)

My entire graduate studies were focused on Somatic Psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies. This orientation provides an added dimension by taking the therapy out of the arena of second-hand reports (from your verbal mind) and into first-hand, felt experience. Our bodies often reveal first what our verbal, self conscious mind attempts to disguise and hide. I utilize Somatic interventions to potentially open you up to information that can be overlooked in most analytic psychotherapy. Traditional therapy practices pay attention almost exclusively to thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. In Somatics, the added awareness of sensations and felt experiences within the body are used to deepen the work. This can provide a channel of cooperation between the unconscious and conscious. In turn, Somatics helps to facilitate communication among parts of yourself that may be lost, hidden, or isolated.

My license is in Marriage & Family Therapy which equips me to work with relationships of all types. My approach to couples work is somewhat eclectic, always experiential and embodied using somatic psychology, attachment theory, the Five Love Languages, and Nonviolent Communication. I believe having a whole sense of self vs becoming enmeshed in a partnership has a healthier balance. Just as much as I work with couples to deepen their communication, emotional intimacy and reconnect intimately, I also work with some couples to consciously uncouple and liberate each other to new life experiences. I am comfortable working with all configurations of relationships including same sex, open marriages, and poly/kink clients.

Working with attachment theory means I pay close attention to how a person shows up in relationships which includes strangers.

The attachment work I do is deep and transformative and sometimes escapes words. I have received specialized Somatic training with Kathy Kain and Stephen J. Terrell which approaches attachment theory work from the bottom up versus the top down. This means bringing my attention to healing the early age physiology first before approaching the adult cognitive brain, which comes second. I also include consciousness and intention around my own attachment style when working on this deep level with clients.

My license is in Marriage & Family Therapy which means I am trained and skilled to work on relationships of all configurations. I have strong interests in working with adult clients of childhood alcoholic and/or abusive homes as well as divorce and

My license is in Marriage & Family Therapy which means I am trained and skilled to work on relationships of all configurations. I have strong interests in working with adult clients of childhood alcoholic and/or abusive homes as well as divorce and

My license is in Marriage & Family Therapy which means I am specifically trained and skilled to work on relationships of all configurations. I have strong interests in working with adult clients of childhood alcoholic and/or abusive (emotional, physical, mental, sexual) homes as well as divorce. I have advanced training in Attachment Theory from a Somatic perspective which I find especially effective when working with clients on this topic. I have both personal and professional experience with marriage, open relationships, divorce, conscious uncoupling and the poly lifestyle.

I view PTSD as a much more complex label than simply PTSD. I work with gradients of traumatic experiences versus adults who have had a "shock trauma" or single incident. I treat adult clients who may have experienced repeated developmental attachment trauma during their early childhood. With my specialized Somatic training, I use an approach to treat the young physiology first and the adult cognition second.

It is my belief that attachment style formulates from childhood and can be influenced and repaired well into our senior years. Creating a consistent trusting safe haven space for a client to experience a new way of being in relationship is critical. Additionally, I have participated in specific Somatic training to work with the younger physiology underneath a client's attachment style first versus from the cognitive brain. This has the potential to create longer lasting results.