Sara Walter Shihdanian (She/They)

Emotion Focused Therapy allows us to examine what motivations might be under the surface that contribute to our choices. Many of us know what decisions we wish we would make more often but struggle to put that into practice. So by using an Emotion Focused lens, we're able to uncover hidden themes that might be keeping you stuck in frustrating situations.

Rogerian therapy is the approach that clients can be trusted to lead the way in therapy when given the right environment. When a treated with unconditional positive regard, non-judgement, genuineness, and transparency, clients find themselves naturally moving towards healing and trusting themselves in new and unexpected ways.

Rogerian therapy is the approach that clients can be trusted to lead the way in therapy when given the right environment. When treated with unconditional positive regard, non-judgement, genuineness, and transparency, clients find themselves naturally moving towards healing. Being trusted in these ways

Trauma-informed CBT is naturally woven into the conversations of therapy but offers powerful clarity. Trauma changes our belief system about ourselves, others, and the world at large. CBT examines how those changes impact our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The trauma-informed lens expands on this by adding how trauma impairs brain function and may drive many of our experiences afterwards. I'm also trained in an intensive trauma treatment program called Cognitive Processing Therapy.

Emotion Focused Therapy allows us to uncover what emotions might be playing out behind our decisions and behaviors. Often we can identify what we'd like to be experiencing more or less of but we struggle to put that into practice. By giving those emotions space to be expressed, we allow them to no longer interrupt our process and find ourselves naturally letting go of unhelpful patterns.

I trained under a gender identity specialist for 3 years, who also has life experience, aside from her clinical expertise. My husband is also transgender, and I have worked with the gender diverse population throughout my time as a therapist.

I trained under a gender specialist with lived experience for 3 years while working at the HIV Alliance in Eugene Oregon. I am also genderqueer but rarely include that as validation of my expertise.

As a queer person in a queer marriage, I've chosen to focus my clinical work with the greater LGBTQIA2S+ population. I worked at an infectious disease and HIV clinic for 3 years before being independently licensed and worked with the rainbow community exclusively during that time.

I provide brainspotting (phase I and II) for trauma and am working towards certification. I've also worked with PTSD, cPTSD, and relational trauma from internship, to community mental health at a clinic serving the community affected by HIV, and into private practice. Some clients prefer to talk through their trauma and for them I offer Cognitive Processing Trauma as well.

Brainspotting allows clients to process through and release trauma without having to talk about it. By sidestepping the front brain (logic) clients can directly access the hind brain where emotion, memory, and trauma is stored without the thinking brain getting in the way, so to speak. This allows clients to heal and release their trauma in days or weeks instead of years of talk therapy.