Dr. Emily Strang (she/her)

I love working with couples who are committed to each other and both motivated for change. Despite both “wanting it to work,” you find yourselves having the same arguments and the same painful feelings. I use both emotion-focused and behavioral techniques, pulling from Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) and Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy (IBCT). We will work toward a relationship dynamic characterized by empathy, acceptance, and mutual effort.

I have worked extensively with the Veteran population and have experience treating trauma from both adulthood and childhood. I work to establish trust, provide psychoeducation about trauma, and teach skills before mutually agreeing to address the trauma. I have had the most success with Prolonged Exposure and Written Exposure Therapy. If you are not ready to directly address the trauma, Present-Centered Therapy for trauma can help with symptom relief and management.

I am fluent in the language and experience of anxiety and the various forms it can take, including excessive worry, panic attacks, social phobia, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Tackling anxiety requires a solid therapeutic alliance and a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral approach. I have command of several evidence-based treatments I can incorporate, with empathy and compassion, and find exposure-based interventions particularly effective.

I prioritize the labeling, expressing, and digesting of emotions in session. We can pretty much do 3 things: think, feel, act. Thinking is an amazing tool for us, and yet we are preprogrammed to get stuck in the Thinking Woods when pain is involved. We analyze and reanalyze in a good faith effort to stop our pain, move past it, or change it. But, rarely can we heal just using our head. It takes effortful emotional processing. "Feeling your feelings" is a skill, and we will work on it.

Exposure-based treatment is the gold standard treatment for trauma and anxiety. We will thoughtfully and safely build mastery over the panic, the fear, or the memory. Before beginning this work, we will ensure you have coping skills. I will also allow time to build a warm and trusting therapeutic relationship before we mutually agree that you're ready for the work. I will have your back throughout.

Not long ago, our ancestors lived in small communities and collaborated with nature to meet the needs of the group. Today, we retain the same psychological equipment but exist within a radically different environment. This whiplash—coupled with unlimited access to information about global human suffering, climate science, and systems dysfunction/breakdown—can leave some of us feeling overwhelmed, lost, or alienated. I'm invested in helping you develop your own meaning and personal life creed.

I love working with couples who are committed to each other and both motivated for change. Despite both “wanting it to work,” you find yourselves having the same arguments and the same painful feelings. Together, we will understand how each of your histories and coping styles impact the relationship and feed off each other in times of distress. We will work toward a relationship dynamic characterized by empathy, acceptance, and mutual effort.