Taylor Satterlee, MFT Trainee

Relational Therapist, Depth-Oriented Approach to Healing and Self-Understanding

• Do you understand why you feel or react a certain way, yet still find yourself repeating the same patterns?
• Do you long for deeper connection but find yourself pulling away, becoming overwhelmed, or struggling to feel secure in relationships?
• Are anxiety, depression, emotional intensity, or old ways of coping keeping you from feeling fully present in your life?
• Do you want to understand yourself more deeply—not just intellectually, but emotionally and physically—so you can create more choice, connection, and authenticity?

Sometimes we can understand ourselves and still feel stuck. Maybe you notice yourself repeating the same patterns in relationships, becoming overwhelmed by emotions, disconnecting when things feel too intense, or knowing intellectually why you feel a certain way without actually feeling any different.

Therapy gives us a place to slow down and become curious about what is happening.

My approach as a person-centered, depth-oriented, and relational therapist is to lean into your own experience, as you are the expert, and my role is not to tell you who you are or what your life should look like. I create a space where you feel genuinely seen, accepted, and safe enough to explore the parts of yourself that may be harder to understand on your own. Together, we can become curious about your relationships, emotions, patterns, history, and the ways you have learned to protect yourself, while creating more space for choice, connection, and a deeper relationship with yourself.

A Person-Centered Approach

I believe meaningful change happens within a genuine human relationship. I approach therapy with warmth, curiosity, compassion, and respect for your individual experience. I do not believe therapy is about fixing you. Many of the patterns we struggle with developed for a reason. They may have helped us stay connected, protect ourselves, manage overwhelming emotions, or get through experiences we did not yet have the tools to understand. Instead of trying to get rid of those patterns right away, I want to understand them with you.

Therapy can become a place where we notice what is happening without judgment. Over time, greater awareness can give us more freedom to decide which patterns still serve us and which ones we may be ready to change.

Attachment, Relationships, and Connection

As a relational therapist, I am especially passionate about attachment, relationships, and the ways our experiences of connection shape how we relate to ourselves and others. Our earliest experiences of connection can influence how we experience love, trust, vulnerability, conflict, intimacy, and belonging. These patterns often show up most strongly in the relationships that matter most. You may recognize yourself:

• Needing reassurance but struggling to ask for it
• Pulling away when what you really want is connection
• Becoming overwhelmed, reactive, or shut down during conflict
• Fearing rejection, abandonment, or not being enough
• Repeating relationship dynamics you consciously know you do not want
• Struggling to trust others or allow yourself to feel vulnerable

I approach these patterns with curiosity rather than judgment. Instead of, “What is wrong with me?” we can begin asking, “What is happening here, and what might this part of me be trying to protect?”

For individuals and couples, I help clients understand the emotional and attachment dynamics beneath conflict and disconnection. My couples work draws on attachment theory, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and Gottman-informed approaches, with the goal of helping partners communicate more openly, understand one another more deeply, and build greater emotional security.

Looking Beneath the Surface: Depth Psychology

My graduate training in Counseling/Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute is rooted in depth psychology. Depth psychology invites us to look beyond what is immediately visible and become curious about the deeper emotional and unconscious patterns shaping our lives. This may include our relationships, defenses, recurring patterns, dreams, emotions, early experiences, and the parts of ourselves we have learned to hide, silence, or disconnect from.

Rather than seeing anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, or other symptoms only as problems to eliminate, I am interested in what they may be communicating. Experiences that leave us feeling stuck can also become doorways to deeper self-understanding.

This does not mean we need to analyze everything. My person-centered orientation remains at the heart of the work. Depth psychology simply gives us another way to become curious about what emerges naturally in therapy and what meaning it may hold for you.

When Talking Is Not Enough: Somatic Work, Breath, and the Nervous System

I have always been curious about our emotional lives and our relationship with our bodies. I am certified in three breathwork modalities and have spent several years facilitating breathwork and working with people through body-based practices. I have also spent years facilitating therapeutic groups and working in dual-diagnosis treatment settings. These experiences have deeply shaped how I understand emotional regulation and healing.

Sometimes we understand exactly why we feel the way we do, but our bodies have not caught up with that understanding. We can know we are safe and still feel anxious. We can understand our attachment patterns and still become activated in a relationship. We can tell ourselves to calm down while our nervous system is telling us something completely different. Because of this, I bring a somatic and nervous-system-informed perspective into therapy. When it feels supportive and appropriate, our work may include:

• Noticing sensations in the body and breath awareness
• Grounding and mindfulness
• Gentle breathing practices
• Exploring how emotions are experienced physically
• Developing greater awareness of nervous-system activation

These tools can help you listen to your experience gently, without force, and as needed. Sometimes the body gives us information that words have not reached yet.

Addiction, Recovery, and the Ways We Learn to Cope

My professional background also includes several years working in dual-diagnosis treatment, which has given me a particular interest in addiction, recovery, and the ways people learn to cope with overwhelming experiences.

I do not see addiction simply as a behavior that needs to change. I am interested in what lies underneath it and what a behavior may have helped someone survive, regulate, avoid, feel, or connect. Recovery can involve much more than changing a behavior. It may include:

• Learning to experience difficult emotions without immediately escaping them 
• Understanding shame and developing greater self-compassion
• Rebuilding trust in yourself and others
• Developing healthier and more supportive relationships
• Reconnect­ing with the body and emotional experience
• Discovering who you are when an old way of coping is no longer organizing your life

I approach addiction and recovery without judgment and with respect for the complexity of each person. Rather than asking how to stop a behavior, we can become curious about what the behavior has meant, what need it has attempted to meet, and what new forms of support may be possible.

My Philosophy of Therapy

I believe there is something powerful about having another person stay genuinely present with us while we explore the parts of ourselves we usually avoid, criticize, or do not completely understand. Therapy does not always need to be about finding an answer. It is about becoming more comfortable with a question. Sometimes it is noticing what happens in your body when you talk about something difficult. It can help us recognize a familiar relationship pattern, as it unfolds in real time. Sometimes it is finding language for something you have felt for years but have never been able to name.

Therapy is a place where you don't have to perform, explain, or have everything figured out.

Let's Begin Your Journey

Seeking therapy can require vulnerability, especially if you are used to handling things on your own or understanding your experiences primarily through thought. But therapy can offer something different: a space to slow down, listen more deeply, and develop a more compassionate relationship with yourself.

My hope is that our work helps you understand yourself more deeply while creating more room for connection, choice, authenticity, and emotional flexibility in your life. You do not need to arrive with the right words or a clear explanation for what is happening. We can begin with where you are.

We can become curious about the parts of your story that feel confusing, painful, or unfinished — and create space for new ways of relating to yourself, your emotions, and the people who matter most.