Ash Compton, MA, LMFT, EMDR-Certified 

I believe that people have the tools within them to evoke greater internal and pattern-healing. During a time filled with tumult, uncertainty, and collective dis-ease; it is my pleasure to sit with you in order to create more ease, awareness, and vibrancy that may be embodied in trauma or grief.

Timing and fit matter in seeking therapeutic care. My approach is inquisitive, curious, warm, direct, and encouraging. You can anticipate a therapist that puts clients at ease by using practical tools in a way that creates long-standing insight and movement. I believe in treating the roots, not the branches. My style works best when you can commit to long-term, weekly sessions and I strongly encourage a depth approach.

My approach

I work with acute and complex traumas with adult individuals, couples, teens/preteens, and full or partial families with focuses on attachment traumas, anxiety, obsessions, disordered eating and thinking, climate and ecological grief, and disaster traumas. I am EMDR-Certified, which I use for acute and complex traumas, OCD/phobias, chronic pain, and as a part of a depth and somatic framework. I work with psychodynamic, expressive, existential-humanistic, gestalt, and family systems orientations.

I incorporate intersectionality into the therapeutic space. Threading trauma and attachment work into the modalities I work with means that you are met in the consulting room as a whole person. Outside of therapeutic work, I am engaged in socio-political activism, writing/research in existential and cultural arenas, and have an active practice of arts and design-systems thinking around the climate crises and related human-nature detachment. Inclusive and affirmative; I have experience working with Trans, BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, Poly individuals, and couples. 

Certifications

• Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in both Texas and Connecticut
• Certificate in Climate Change and Human Health – Yale School of Public Health
• EMDR-Certified
• Certificate in Art of Archetypal Fairytale Analysis
• Gottman Relationship Checkup Facilitator

My background

I graduated from Pacifica Graduate University in 2016, with a Masters of Counseling Psychology and an emphasis on post-Jungian/Depth Psychology. My first career was involved in the design of 3-dimensional spaces, in commercial interiors. This work set the stage for play with narrative, imagery, and concept-laying rich groundwork for expressive arts, play therapy, and mythic exploration. I completed my graduate clinical practicum at The High Frontier, an adolescent treatment center, focusing on behavioral issues, attachment disorders, and substance and internet addiction with adolescents 12-18 years old. Prior to working in Austin, I worked in supervised private practice settings in both far west Texas and Dallas, focusing on relational issues and attachment, Sandplay, and trauma with couples, adults, and adolescents. 

I look forward to working with you.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” – C.G. Jung