(22+ year-olds interested in therapy for themselves)
Attachment/Developmental/Relational Trauma/Complex PTSD, Situational Trauma/PTSD, Relationship Issues, Co-Dependency, Social Anxiety, Stress, Life Transitions, Feeling Stuck, Anxiety/Fears, Chronic Pain or Illness, Dissociation, Therapist for Therapists
Dr. Dianne Poole Heller taught Dr. Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing for 25 years before adapting some of the concepts of SE to facilitate more nurturing adult relationships through DARe. The work is incredibly gentle and regularly filled with joyful moments of connection. We're finding the just-right amount of pain to attune to and process through, with the help of the just-right amount and kinds of support for you while repairing long-stored painful relational stories about who you are and how you will receive love.
Examples of support: Posture, movement, pillows, blankets, words, tone, imagery, distancing, eye contact. So many powerful, small moments of attunement offer a deep sense of being seen and cared for.
Stan Tatkin's couple's approach provides spaciousness in communication and time to identify what relationship means to the two individuals within the couple and how to honor the safeguards for both to feel secure within the relationship.
I am trained through Level 2.
Founded by Francine Shapiro in 1987
Utilizes bilateral stimulation (BLS): movement from one side of our body/brain to the other, back and forth in a specific rhythm, either for reprocessing painful material or strengthening a sense of ease, comfort, confidence, safety, or wisdom. Modeled after REM sleep, when our eyes flutter back-and-forth as our brains make sense of the unfinished material from our day, organizing how to store the information in either short or long-term memory, and choosing what to discard.
The BLS activates the thoughts, emotions, and sensations correlated with the memory we're choosing to work with, sometimes opening up other related memories, bringing the activation up from longterm memory into short term memory where we can work with it, meet your needs, and then send it back into longterm memory in a way that better serves your present and future.
Forms of bilateral stimulation: We will be creative with what BLS fits the moment.
Examples: handheld buzzers, eye movements, butterfly hug, marching, self-tapping on knees
Initially studied as a trauma modality for war veterans with PTSD, now there are protocols for panic attacks, addictions, insomnia, dissociation, complex PTSD/attachment injuries, sexual assault, nonverbal memories, and so many other applications of this powerful method of therapy.
EMDR Trainings:
Completed EMDR Basic Training in 2017 while working in a Juvenile Detention Center and Community Clinic in Chalmette, LA (suburb of New Orleans).
EMDR Child Specialist, Level 1 integrates sandtray, play therapy, and EMDR. While I no longer work with kids, this training was my favorite to date. Ana Gomez taught me to be playful and creative, finding the right words and movements, which I have adapted with adults as empowering your inner child through the EMDR process. 2019
AF-EMDR (Attachment Focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) utilizes similar Resources to DARe to offer new experiences with the Nurturer(s), Protector(s), and Spiritual/Wise Figure(s) that were needed at the time of the event when reprocessing developmental/relational traumatic material. Laurel Parnell also teaches Resource Tapping, which allows you to continue building your sense of ease and confidence in handling life between sessions.
I am greatly influenced by Dr. Arielle Schwartz's Somatic EMDR contributions when working with Complex PTSD, and I participate in many of her trainings and group consultation opportunities.
DNMS (Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy) utilizes EMDR to work directly with dissociative parts through direct conversation, 2020
IPAR-EMDR (Integrating Parts Work and Attachment Repair) offers an organized approach to parts work, utilizing attachment resources within EMDR. 2023
Acute & Ongoing Trauma Stress for Groups and Individuals (ASSYST, EMDR-PRECI, EMDR-IGTP, GTEP, C-GTEP, GPEP & The Parenting Wheel). 2023, 2024
Certified EMDR Therapist, EMDRIA, 2024
Relational EMDR (Relational Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) acknowledges the incredible moments of meeting personal needs and the significance of being cared for within the therapeutic relationship, building on the powerful tools of EMDR. 2025
EMDR Intensives offering half-day to 5-day therapy to one person for significant change. 2025
Developed by Kay and Milan Yerkovich in Orange County, CA is a couples method that includes a few complicated concepts in easy to apply ways. Their website and books by the same name, How We Love, provide attachment quizzes that match your individual attachment styles into a relationship core pattern. I use their Core Pattern Conflict Cycles, Communication Template, and Repair Strategies in relational coaching with individuals, and, in couples sessions.
Inner Relational Focusing deepens your understanding of the present moment experience through body scans, identifying parts and their needs, and how it is to meet your Parts' needs in the moment-to-moment unfolding.
Somatic Experiencing taught me titration and pendulation, the skills of making sure that we're not doing too much too fast. Titration is the concept of taking the right-sized bite, and, pendulation is the concept of moving back and forth between pain point and resource. The rhythm is sort of like when a child is at the playground and they're free to go and climb the jungle gym and then they start to notice a feeling of being alone and get nervous, they look and see that Mom or Dad is still right there on the bench watching them, and then they're good again, laughing as they go down the slide, and giddy to go right back up and play. We will not be pushing you into the metaphorical deep end alone in this work. Peter Levine's great contribution to the field is the skill of guiding clients to release fight-flight-fight energy stuck within a traumatic memory.
Window of Tolerance provides a map of your hyperarousal and hypoarousal, allowing us to identify precisely when and what sends you out of your window so that we can safely expand your sense of living life as your genuine self.
Polyvagal Theory maps out how sensory information is being interpreted by your gut-brain connection and provides a guideline for restoring your ventral vagal social connection abilities and your rest-and-digest parasympathetic system.
Trust-Based Relational Intervention was the second model of therapy I learned in graduate school, primarily used with foster kids and their families for mood regulation. The model taught me different playful, creative, artful, and movement strategies for working with hyperarousal and hypoarousal states, and, how to communicate with clients in reactive states.
Based on decades of research Dr. John Gottman conducted in an 'apartment' lab, Dr. Julie Gottman created a counseling model for teaching couples what makes love last, warning against the predictors of divorce/breakups, and facilitating specific conversations to build skills in areas where the assessments show as areas for growth.
I am trained through Level 3.
DNMS (Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy) utilizes EMDR to work directly with dissociative parts through direct conversation
Inner Relational Focusing deepens your understanding of the present moment experience through body scans, identifying parts and their needs, and how it is to meet your Parts' needs in the moment-to-moment unfolding.
The Adult Chair is a simplified model incorporating guided meditations that attune to Child, Adolescent, and Adult parts with the intention of living out most of our days from our Adult Chair.
Internal Family Systems organizes parts as Core Self, Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles, with the goal of unburdening parts so that you feel more calm, confident, curious, centred, creative, courageous, compassionate, and connected—evidence of living as your Core Self.
Most couples, not all.
If you experience domestic violence in your relationship or one or both of you abuse drugs and/or alcohol, please continue your search for couples therapists who have the specializations that meet your current needs.
If you are in a polyamorous or open relationship, I acknowledge my bias towards monogamy and limited training in polyamorous relationship dynamics. Please seek a Therapist who identifies with and/or is well-versed in relationship dynamics that honor your needs and values to work more efficiently towards your relational therapy goals.
Each therapy journey is unique, but here are some of the things we may explore together:
🧬 Attachment & Inner Child Healing
• Discovering your attachment style and working toward earned secure connection
• Healing from emotionally immature parenting
• Breaking cycles of generational trauma—whether you’re parenting, choosing not to, or afraid of repeating the past
• Processing relational wounds from childhood, friendships, or past partners
🚨 Nervous System Support & Somatic Regulation
• Working with hypervigilance, sensitivity, anxiety, and shutdown
• Understanding your body’s trauma responses and how to meet them with care
• Navigating dissociation, freeze, or fawn states with curiosity and compassion
• Learning to feel safer in your body, home, work, and relationships
🏚️ Disorganized Attachment & Chaos Recovery
• Rebuilding trust in yourself after growing up in instability or unpredictability
• Soothing big reactions that don’t match the moment—but make perfect sense to your history
• Learning how to feel "adult enough" to handle life when you're often overwhelmed
❤️🩹 Boundaries, Grief & Receiving Support
• Letting go of “I’m fine” and learning to receive help
• Building the confidence to say no, rest, and take up space
• Tending to the grief of what never was, and making space for what could be
🧠 Navigating Hard Decisions & Inner Ambivalence
• Facing choices around relationships, parenting, moving, or identity
• Exploring the ache of staying in something that no longer fits—and the fear of being alone
• Working with the “rock and hard place” moments with honesty and gentleness
💫 Self-Compassion & Life That Feels Like Yours
• Reconnecting with dreams that feel like they belong to you
• Building motivation and momentum rooted in your values—not performance
• Creating a life that feels easeful, connected, and meaningful—not just “fine”
🛋️Therapy for Therapists, Psych Students, and Therapists in Training
• Breaking through the tension between confidence and competency
• Releasing personal material showing up as countertransference in sessions
• Clarifying: Is this part of my personal healing or the seed of my clinical calling?
• Creating space where you don’t have to be the one holding it all together
• Rebuilding trust in yourself as both a person and a provider
|| Peter Levine, Ph.D
MA in Marriage and Family Therapy, Spring 2018
MA in Christian Apologetics, Fall 2018
BA in Psychology with a minor in Leadership, Fall 2012
I studied in Denver, Western Europe, and New Orleans, and, have traveled extensively all with the intention of learning about family dynamics from diverse people across the country and world.
Assistant in DARe 2 training, 2025
EMDR Intensives, Scaling Up, 2025
The Dance of Attachment: An Introduction to Relational EMDR Therapy℠, 2025
Somatic Experiencing, Beginning I, 2025
Advanced EMDR for Acute Trauma and Ongoing Traumatic Stress (ASSYST, EMDR-PRECI, and the EMDR-IGTP), Scaling Up, 2024
Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning Experiencing (DARe), 2019-2022; Certified, 2024
Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Certified, EMDRIA, 2024
Integrating Parts Work and Attachment Repair (IPAR) EMDR, 2023
Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT), Level 2, 2023
EMDR Group Protocol Series (GTEP, C-GTEP, GPEP & The Parenting Wheel), Agate Institute, 2023
Somatic Attachment Therapy Certificate, The Embody Lab, 2022
Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate, The Embody Lab, 2021
Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS), Trained, 2020
EMDR Child Specialist, Level 1, Agate Institute, 2019
Gottman Method Couples Therapy, Level 3, 2017-2019
Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Basic Training, EMDR Support Network, 2017
Trust-Based Relational Intervention, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Modality Course, 2015
Started Upward Roots in October 2021
Licensed (LMFT #128217) in September 2021
Counseled children, teens, individual adults, and couples at two separate group private practices, 2018-2021
Counseled youth in the Juvenile Detention Center, 2016-2018
Counseled children, couples, and adult individuals at a community center, 2016-2018
Began counseling college students, and, women at a rehab in 2015
ABA Therapist, 2013-2015
Interned at a foster agency, 2012
Caretaker and Event Coordinator Assistant at a retirement and assisted living, 2009-2010, 2012
PATH ONE I am a rule follower and appreciate the safety offered by guidelines and accountability for myself and clients. So, I would choose the therapist route again.
A 3-year Somatic or Integral Counseling Psychotherapy degree at Naropa Bounder, CO, or CIIS in San Francisco, CA
While enrolled in practicum, I'd recommend finding one organization for specialized EMDR that resonates with you. For me, it would have been Laurel Parnell's AF-EMDR. Staying in one organization will help you filter other models through the lens and provide you with a sense of community as you grow as a clinician, perhaps one day as a consultant and trainer. I would also learn Ego States or IFS integration for EMDR early on.
After graduation, complete an attachment-somatic training that requires a 3-year somatic program as a prerequisite. There are several options, including Kathy L. Kain's Touch Skills for Therapists or her co-author Stephen Terrell, PsyD's Transforming Touch.
PATH TWO If you're in or graduated from a graduate counseling program that did not emphasize somatic psychotherapy, I would jump into Lisa Mortimore, PhD, and Stacy Addam Jensen, MEd's 2-year Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Certification Program promptly after graduating. If you want something shorter, I've heard amazing things about Dr. Abi Blakeslee, an SEP with her own training program for therapists. If you feel you want more self-mapping nervous system skills, I'd lean into Deb Dana's Polyvagal Teachings. And if you're already licensed, consider Diana Fosha's AEDP certification program.
PATH THREE For someone who doesn't feel the need for an ethics board and all that comes with having an MA and being an licensed social worker or therapist, this would be a different route with a similar result.
Become an Adult Chair Coach working with clients through a simplified parts model
Complete the 3-year Somatic Experiencing program to become an SEP
Then pursue, Kathy L. Kain's Touch Skills for Therapists or her co-author Stephen Terrell, PsyD's Transforming Touch, and Dr. Diane Poole Heller's DARe.
When you're ready, I’ll be here—
to slow down, attune, and walk with you
as you come home to yourself.
Weekly/biweekly 50-minute sessions allow you to use your PPO benefits by seeking reimbursement with a Superbill. We will be efficient and effective with our time, likely with 25-35 minutes of EMDR reprocessing (using BLS), ensuring that we start and end sessions with Grounding or Imagery to comfort Parts that we are committed to unburdening them, and we will return to our deep work in the next session. Between sessions, I'll encourage you to use EMDR: Resource Tapping to continue updating your narrative on the relevant material we're working with and perhaps assign a specific journaling exercise or prompt for conversation with someone specific. $195
Weekly/biweekly 80-minute sessions give us time to be patient and attune to the needs of your Parts. A feeling of spaciousness allows us to playfully expand moments of relief and joyous celebration, and focus on pain points, adapting the types of care that were needed at the time, then return to a sense of ease, of overcoming before the end of the session, most times. We will have time for somatic exercises to activate and move through the frozen fight-flight energy within a memory, and have 50-65 minutes of EMDR reprocessing (using BLS). $312
Extended Sessions (multi-hour sessions) are available for deeper work—offered in-person or via telehealth on select days. 3 hours: $700, 4 hours: $930
Intensives for individuals who don't want to wait months of once-a-week, hour-long sessions to feel better. After hearing your goals for the intensive, I may suggest one day if there is one specific thing we are working on (ex. recent car accident that did not trigger any previous experiences, or preparing for an upcoming event that you're anxious about such as a presentation or attending your High School or College reunion) up to 5 days for deep identity work for individuals who have lived their whole lives in survival mode and struggle to believe "I'm worthy of a healthy relationship," "I deserve to be happy," or "I'm good enough." Booked by the half day, $900, or full day: $1700
Standard Couples Sessions are 110 minutes long—long enough for both partners to feel heard, supported, and understood. These sessions tend to attachment wounds and offer repair for Inner Child and Present Adults for couples who recognize they are triggering each other's trauma histories and having difficulty showing care to each other's bids for connection in critical moments. $420
Shorter 80-minute Couples sessions are available for couples who are to-the-point in their communication styles and prefer a more focused pace, perhaps who have problems to solve and communication skills to practice, or one partner has trauma triggers flaring within the relationship. $312
50-minute sessions are available for couples who cannot afford therapy without using their PPO benefits and need to seek reimbursement with a Superbill. We will be efficient and effective with our time. Please understand that it will happen more often where we cannot attend to both partner's triggered wound in each session, which is why longer sessions are recommended for couples. We will likely take more weeks to reach your relational goals. $195
Extended Sessions (multi-hour sessions) are available for deeper work—offered in-person or via telehealth on select days. 3 hours: $700, 4 hours: $930, full day: $1700
Wednesday 7 am - 5 pm (in-person and telehealth)
Thursday 7 am - 5 pm (in-person and telehealth)
Friday available for EMDR or couples intensives (in-person or telehealth)
Saturday closed
Sunday available for EMDR or couples intensives (in-person or telehealth)
Monday 11-4 (telehealth); available for EMDR or couples intensives (in-person or telehealth)
Tuesday available for EMDR or couples intensives (in-person or telehealth)
I respond promptly to emails, calls, and SimplePractice Secure Messages, Monday-Friday, 7 am - 4 pm.
Email: melaniegoetz@upwardroots.com
Phone: (760) 453-0373
Fax: (760) 621-7619
Mailing Address: 1759 Oceanside Blvd., Suite C, Box 192, Oceanside, CA 92054
In-Person Counseling Address: 325 Carlsbad Village Drive, Suite A2, Carlsbad, CA 92008
I respond promptly to emails, calls, and SimplePractice Secure Messages and Appointment Inquiries, Monday-Friday, 7 am - 4 pm.
Yes, please. I welcome any opportunity for growth and clarity in how to best support you and future clients. You can share the feedback using this Google Form, in a session, or in a Simple Practice Secure Message.
Yes, please do. I want to make sure both of us feel confident in our ability to meet your therapy goals together before we start unpacking your history in sessions. We can get started with a free, 20-minute phone consultation.
Not at all. Sometimes, all that is known is a triggering smell or sound, or a recurring stomach ache or other ailment that cannot be diagnosed by doctors. We'll work with what you do know that bothers you and leads to this seemingly overreaction. We'll identify the need within the reaction, and significantly reduce the distress. Perhaps in the process more ideas about the memory will arise, but not necessarily, and either way is okay.
Yes, We are still able to have beautifully effective somatic and EMDR sessions over Zoom. For Eye Movement (BLS) we will use a specific website, and I'll ask you to set up your camera a specific way so I can track your body as you reprocess. The main difference is that you are choosing your environment for sessions, so we get to use different sensory tools that work for you from your own space, rather than the options I have in an office. In-person therapy is best for individuals who cannot locate a private space for meeting, or whom feel having a separate, contained space for therapy will allow for increased felt-safety with vulnerability and processing emotion, further reducing flashbacks and overwhelming triggered responses between sessions.
I use an attachment-oriented, trauma-informed, integrative approach with all my clients. I'll come into the first session already familiar with your written answers to my attachment-focused mental health intake paperwork. We'll start in the first session, gently exploring your strengths, the natural resources you already have working for you in your day-to-day life, and the key relationships that shape how you are and who you are when you truly feel yourself. In the following sessions, we'll discover and practice additional tools to help you maintain a present sense of groundedness as we approach more difficult work. From there, we'll explore deeper roots to bring healing to the relational wounds plaguing your interactions with self and others.
I want to help you find your sense of empowerment to identify, seek, and truly flourish in relationships and in the structure of your life. We'll share leadership in setting our goals and in identifying the direction of our work in each session. I like to say, "I'll always have a Plan B for our sessions, but if you have a different Plan A, then we'll honor your more urgent need." My Plan B is to prepare you for and support you in discovering and healing the painful roots of unhelpful patterns of relating to yourself and others in your present relationships.
The feel of sessions is customized. In some sessions, I'll be an engaged, empathic listener, perhaps a structured organizer for deeper processing or a 'namer' of your emotional and bodily experiences. In others, I may be a guide for meditation and imagery. The range of ways in which we use our time to honor your needs is truly countless.
Finally, we'll consider future experiences that would likely call for old habits to return, ensuring that you will have access to these new resources practiced in therapy for when those experiences do occur. We'll go through this process at your own pace, together with curiosity and tenderness. In each step, we'll revisit your beautiful resources, deepening your sense of embodied safety within yourself and in your healthy relationships.
Slow down the cycle.
Notice and interrupt painful patterns in real time, creating space for something new.
Listen beneath the surface.
Tune into the subtle signals — body language, emotions, nervous system cues — that shape your connection or disconnection.
Build new relational habits.
Through presence, repair, and practice, you will develop new ways of functioning within your relationship that leave both of you feeling safe, heard, known, and loved.
Session One: You’ll share your love story—what brought you together and what’s getting in the way now.
Session Two: I’ll explore each of your individual histories and attachment styles.
Session Three: We’ll bring it all together with a clear plan grounded in insight, care, and connection.
Whether you're looking to strengthen your bond or preparing for marriage, our work will help define the relationship you’re building and create the guardrails for lasting closeness.
