About Me
I'm a white, cis-gender woman in my mid-30s from Alabama. My maiden name, Stayer, has always felt fitting because I’m a very steady and consistent person. I’m fortunate to have maintained a deep bench of friendships from early childhood onward. My husband and I met in 2010 and have been together since; we have an (amazing) daughter and two (wonderful) doggos. I love hiking, reading, painting, playing chess, and really just playing in general!, learning to garden, and being with my friends and family (chosen and bio). I try very hard to maintain a commitment to social justice learning and action and am involved in mutual aid work outside of my therapy practice. As someone fascinated by human interaction and with a large capacity for love and a deep well of hope for goodness, it’s no surprise to me that I stayed true to this passion throughout my education and became a therapist.
Background
I joke that I double majored in feelings during undergrad, earning my BA in Psychology and Sociology with honors from Grinnell College. After graduating, I joined Americorps in Colorado and worked in an after school and all day summer program for physically and sexually abused children ages 5-10. When my service term ended, I moved to North Carolina and worked as program coordinator for an arts enrichment program for youth living in poverty, ages 8-21. I learned a great deal about myself and my blind spots, the breadth and depth of societal oppression, and the power of human resilience in those years. Those experiences motivated me to earn my MSW in hopes that I could better contribute to positive social change as a psychotherapist.
I earned my MSW from UNC Chapel Hill and began my work as a clinician. My first internship year was spent in a residential treatment center for teenage male sex offenders. My second year I worked at Duke CAPS treating undergraduate and graduate students. After graduating, I worked for a community mental health agency in Durham where I treated folks of all ages with a variety of intense mental health needs. During this time, I encountered somatic approaches to psychotherapy and felt a light bulb go off. Learning to incorporate my body in my own therapy brought about profound and lasting changes that I hadn't seen in my prior work or in my work with my patients. I decided to join a small group practice welcoming young clinicians who were motivated to learn and implement somatic psychotherapy modalities. I spent the next three years pursuing my Somatic Experiencing Practitioner credentials and learning a tremendous amount about human physiology and the oneness that is our physical, emotional, and mental being.
My new knowledge of the human physiology depended my interest in treating patients with complex health conditions and chronic pain. I took a position with Duke Integrative Medicine as their psychotherapist and had the privilege of working collaboratively with some of the most advanced medical practitioners in the country. While this type of practice was intellectually stimulating and meaningful, the case load volume and time demands of the hospital setting made it difficult for me to strike a healthy work/life balance.
I moved in to private practice so that I can continue to provide financially for my family as a therapist while maintaining a case load and approach that prioritizes my wellness as well as my patients'. I find this setting has allowed my work with patients to deepen and to become more creative.
Approach
I believe everyone has what they need to heal already inside them. I see the therapeutic relationship as a sacred form of teamwork that makes healing and transformation possible through attuned support.
I specialize in trauma recovery and welcome folks from all genders and sexual orientations who are seeking support in healing from attachment and developmental trauma, sexual trauma, acute traumas, medical traumas, or pervasive traumas like living with chronic health conditions or experiences of oppression. I enjoy working with folks who want to improve their relationship with their body and with food. I also treat anxiety, depression, perfectionism, burnout, interpersonal conflict, and distress during life transitions.
My work is driven by my commitment to social justice. I am explicitly an anti-oppression, sex positive practitioner. I have extensive training in a variety of approaches to mental health care and will co-create a treatment plan with you that reflects your unique needs, experiences, and identities.
As a psychobiological practitioner, I encourage my clients to explore integrative approaches to treatment and am happy to collaborate with practitioners of other backgrounds. I have practiced in several integrative health settings and offer comprehensive assessments for folks who are ready to build their treatment team.
I come from a long line of educators and deeply respect the teaching relationship. It is incredibly courageous to ask someone for mentorship and guidance. I have taught and tutored in various capacities for the past 15 years and because of my love of teaching, I have decided to offer clinical supervision to clinicians seeking their LCSW license. As a somatic psychotherapist, my clinical supervision is best suited for clinicians also interested in these modalities. If you are interested in supervision, please contact me for more information.
As a therapist or supervisor, I am warm, playful, encouraging, and solid. In both roles, I encourage us to critically examine and challenge the ways that systems of oppression are impacting our experiences. I love reading and imagery and often incorporate metaphors and visual elements into my work. As an avid outdoor enthusiast, I’m also open to having sessions outdoors whenever possible.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing (SE), developed by Dr. Peter Levine, is a neuroscientifically-based approach for the treatment of trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and related concerns. Somatic Experiencing supports the body’s innate capacity to heal after overwhelming and traumatizing experiences.
Trauma can be defined as any challenging event that we don't get enough support around at the time for the body to resolve on it's own. Somatic Experiencing techniques help to determine where a person’s nervous system is “stuck” in the fight, flight, freeze response cycle and then release the survival energy that can sometimes remain bound in the body following a traumatizing event. Our bodies can get “stuck” in a response to a wide variety of events including assault, loss, neglect, car accidents, medical procedures, natural disasters, war, birth trauma, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, being shamed, or the cumulative effect of chronic stressors related to social oppression.
Our ability to instinctively enact survival responses during acute or long-term crisis is a gift of our bodies, it's why we all are here. Our ancestors were able to survive. While our survival responses are beautiful and essential, they can be problematic if they stay on when the real danger has ended. This can cause physical pain (like migraines and IBS), medical conditions like autoimmune disorders, mood disorders, a decreased quality of life, and challenges connecting with others.
SE does not require an individual to re-tell or re-live their traumatic event, and this gentle and effective approach can be offered as an accompaniment to other therapeutic modalities. While I use a somatic framework with every patient, please don't hesitate to reach out if you think Somatic Experiencing treatment could be helpful for you.
For more information on Somatic Experiencing or Somatic Experiencing research go to: www.traumahealing.org
Embodied Recovery
If we leave the body out of treatment, we are failing to address the full person and to support them in achieving the fullest healing available to us. Embodied Recovery is a somatic approach to the treatment of eating disorders and attachment trauma. Here is some information about the modality from the creators of the approach:
"Eating disorders are complex, multi-layered and pernicious. And yet, even the best evidenced-based interventions currently available have limited long-term outcomes. Ironically, the body, the very stage where the war is waged, may be the missing link to effective treatment for eating disorders.
EMBODIED RECOVERY was designed to support a paradigm shift that is emerging in the field of eating disorders. Current bio-psycho-social models of eating disorder treatment have narrowly defined the body’s role to include genetic predisposition and resourcing the body through re-feeding and psychopharmacology.
Our somato-psycho-social model expands the role of the body to include anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, movement, and posture. EMBODIED RECOVERY core principles facilitate the intersection between somatic organization, subjective experience of self, and basic human needs for attachment and defense.
EMBODIED RECOVERY model:
Shifting from bio-psycho-social model to somato-psycho-social model.
Directly resourcing the body so that it becomes a resource in recovery rather than an obstacle to recovery.
Collaborate with the body at the physiological level to support the infrastructures that govern emotional regulation, memory, and sustained healing.
Shifting the focus from what people with eating disorders are saying about their bodies to what their bodies are saying about what it means to be alive (defense structures) and what they need to thrive (attachment system).
Redefining recovery as an experience of embodiment rather than the absence or reduction of eating disorder symptoms."
A healthy, compassionate relationship with food and your body is possible. I'd love to support you on your path to recovery.
Land Acknowledgement
I acknowledge that the land where I live and practice has long served as a site of meeting, exchange, learning, and healing for a number of Indigenous communities - historically the Catawba and Shakori. Today it is the unceded territory of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation.
I regularly make financial contributions to the American Indian Center at UNC, the Lumbee, Coharie, and Occaneechi Saponi tribal councils, and to Indigenous Rights organizations locally and around the world.
To learn more about the Occanneechi people, visit their website: https://obsn.org/
To learn about the UNC Indian Center's programming, annual Powwow (which is open to the public), and scholar funds, visit their website: American Indian Center at UNC
Books & Resources
I LOVE to read and gladly recommend books, podcasts, posts, and articles to my patients that I have found helpful or interesting. Here are a few of my favorites:
Books
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk
Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer
See No Stranger by Valerie Kaur
Educated by Tara Westover
Poets
Mary Oliver
Joy Harjo
Nikky Finney
Adrienne Rich
Layli Long Solidier
Podcasts/Posts
Finding Our Way with Prentish Hemphill
Poetry Unbound with Padraig O Tuama