Natalia Amari (she/her)

Getting hurt by someone you’ve cared for is especially painful. While the physical traumas can be scary as hell, the emotional traumas can take a lot more work to heal. When I work with domestic violence survivors certain themes come up over and over again. Survivors often wonder if something’s wrong with them, why this person hurt them and why they might still care for them. These are complex questions worthy of exploration. Through a multi-modal approach that infuses relational, experiential and body-oriented approaches I help clients overcome trauma, create healthy boundaries, increase resilience, reclaim their sense of self and create the lives they wish to lead.

Getting hurt by someone you’ve cared for is especially painful. While the physical traumas can be scary as hell, the emotional traumas can take a lot more work to heal. When I work with domestic violence survivors certain themes come up over and over again. Survivors often wonder if something’s wrong with them, why this person hurt them and why they might still care for them. These are complex questions worthy of exploration. Through a multi-modal approach that infuses relational, experiential and body-oriented approaches I help clients overcome trauma, create healthy boundaries, increase resilience, reclaim their sense of self and create the lives they wish to lead.

Getting hurt by someone you’ve cared for is especially painful. While the physical traumas can be scary as hell, the emotional traumas can take a lot more work to heal. When I work with domestic violence survivors certain themes come up over and over again. Survivors often wonder if something’s wrong with them, why this person hurt them and why they might still care for them. These are complex questions worthy of exploration. Through a multi-modal approach that infuses relational, experiential and body-oriented approaches I help clients overcome trauma, create healthy boundaries, increase resilience, reclaim their sense of self and create the lives they wish to lead.

Sexual trauma can really shake us to our core. Living in a sexist world after a trauma can be overwhelming as a woman. Toxic masculinity is prevalent in both work and home life – creating complex triggers in unlikely places. As our awareness of these intersections between trauma and sexism increase, we may feel up in arms, ready to start a revolution! But we need to take exquisite care of ourselves first or else we are left feeling overwhelmed, drained and hopeless. After a sexual trauma we often wonder – can we ever feel beautiful, sexual, and/or feminine again and still feel safe? Can we trust others – or even ourselves – again? The answer is a resounding yes. Through a multi-modal approach that infuses relational, experiential and body-oriented approaches I help clients overcome trauma, create healthy boundaries, increase resilience, reclaim their sense of self and create the lives they wish to lead.

Life experiences impact all aspects of our being, including our psychology, physiology and how we interact with others and ourselves. Because life experiences can affect us in such layered ways, the impacts of such life experiences can also be passed down in an intergenerational manner through interpersonal learning and biology. At times this may be obvious - like seeing a particular challenge, like violence, running through a family. Other times it’s more subtle, like realizing the different attachment styles that shape the way we react to the world. Sometimes we may even find ourselves afraid of something yet we don’t know why. Or we keep resulting to a coping strategy that does not serve us, yet we feel unable to do otherwise. Through a multi-modal approach that infuses relational, experiential and body-oriented approaches I help clients overcome intergenerational trauma, create healthy boundaries, increase resilience, reclaim their sense of self and create the lives they wish to lead.

Sexual trauma can really shake us to our core. Living in a sexist world after a trauma can be overwhelming as a woman. Toxic masculinity is prevalent in both work and home life – creating complex triggers in unlikely places. As our awareness of these intersections between trauma and sexism increase, we may feel up in arms, ready to start a revolution! But we need to take exquisite care of ourselves first or else we are left feeling overwhelmed, drained and hopeless. After a sexual trauma we often wonder – can we ever feel beautiful, sexual, and/or feminine again and still feel safe? Can we trust others – or even ourselves – again? The answer is a resounding yes. Through a multi-modal approach that infuses relational, experiential and body-oriented approaches I help clients overcome trauma, create healthy boundaries, increase resilience, reclaim their sense of self and create the lives they wish to lead.

Integration is the key to sustainable change. Integration happens on multiple layers - cognitively, biologically, and relationally. No two people are alike and thus, therapy should be adapted to each specific client to foster deep healing. My approach to therapy infuses a systems lens, feminist/multiculturalist psychotherapies, stage-based trauma therapies, attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, relational approaches, body-oriented (somatic) modalities, creative approaches, experiential psychotherapy, existential psychotherapy, depth psychology. This diverse skill set allows me to employ a multitude of empirically backed psychotherapies while being very real and approachable with my clients. This kind of integrative model allows me to help clients feel what they need to feel, process what they need to process, and grow in the ways they need to grow so they can create the lives they wish to lead.

Feminist therapy is a strength-based framework that is cognizant of power, bias, prejudice and systemic oppression. The problems the client brings to therapy are viewed in relationship to society at large. Rather than the problem being intrinsic to the person. In feminist therapy, we work diligently to foster an egalitarian relationship. This is the idea that you are the best expert of yourself and your problems. The therapist is bringing all their skills and training but doesn’t assert to be the expert of you. In this context, therapist and client collaborate as equals to help the client heal. Feminist therapists may use a variety of tools to help validate and normalize the client’s experiences. This includes analyzing how the social construction of gender has influenced the problems they are bringing to therapy – if at all. We may look at how power, unequal power, or the abuse of power impacts your well-being and capacity to thrive. Feminist therapy is particularly useful when considering experiences of inequality, race-based or gendered traumas, such as domestic and sexual violence.

As humans, we have evolved to withstand life’s inherent traumas through interdependency. Not codependency. Interdependency. We thrive, as humans, when we can rely on and support others. And we learn how to support ourselves and others through the kind of support we’ve received. In therapy, we create a relationship (a unique one at that!) to help you bring those feelings up to be safely experienced and now responded to in the way(s) you needed before. With compassion, empathy, sincere belief, and support. This is how we release the past and free ourselves from having to “manage” all the freaking time.

My approach to trauma therapy infuses a systems lens, feminist/multiculturalist psychotherapies, stage-based trauma therapies, attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, relational approaches, body-oriented (somatic) modalities, creative approaches, experiential psychotherapy, existential psychotherapy, depth psychology. This diverse skill set allows me to employ a multitude of empirically backed psychotherapies while being very real and approachable with my clients. This kind of integrative model allows me to help clients feel what they need to feel, process what they need to process, and grow in the ways they need to grow so they can create the lives they wish to lead.

My practice in sex therapy is rooted in trauma-informed, attachment-oriented, culturally responsive, and body-centered approaches. My expertise is in helping clients recover from sexual trauma, as well as empowering members of the LGBTQIA+ and the consensual non-monogamy communities to live in a fully expressed way free from trauma. I offer sex therapy to individuals and those in relationships.