About Me

Melanie Goetz, LMFT

I am motivated, as we are all motivated, by a desire to connect with others and ourselves in honoring ways. Unfortunately, in our upbringing, we often learn "rules" for connection that are no longer working in our best interest within friendships, family relations, and romantic relations. I hope to support all of my clients in their journey towards earned-secure attachment. 

My personal self-care, grounding habits include: tech-free quiet time, nature walks, listening to the ocean waves crashing, listening to birds, self-massage, painting my nails, enjoying a cup of tea, deep breathing, co-regulating hugs, creative plant-based cooking, dancing freely, gardening, playing my hangpan drum, and practicing basic tai chi and qigong movements. 

My approach to therapy

I use an attachment-oriented, trauma-informed, integrative approach with all my clients. Basically what that means is that we'll gently explore your strengths and the natural resources you already have working for you in your day-to-day life and key relationships. We'll then 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 towards the relational wounds that continue to plague your interactions with self and others currently. 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 in your timing, together with curiosity and tenderness.  In each step we'll revisit the beautiful resources you have, deepening your sense of embodied safety within yourself and in your healthy relationships.

Sessions are catered to your current needs and longings. We are able to schedule weekly 50-minute sessions, 90-minute sessions, or multi-hour intensive sessions. Additionally, 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, and in others, I may be a guide for meditation and imagery. The range for how we use our time to honor your needs truly is countless. 

To be clear, we are able to still have beautifully effective somatic and EMDR sessions over Zoom. 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.