Marie-Michele Atkinson, LMFT

Marie-Michele’s approach to therapy is collaborative, relational and integrative. Since 2016 they have worked as a trauma-focused somatic psychotherapist with adult individuals and couples addressing issues such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, shame, difficulties with relationships and intimacy through a trauma-focused lens. Marie-Michele’s approach is different from traditional talk therapy. They draw from interventions such as “parts-work,” Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), the Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM), Somatic Psychology, Interpersonal Neurobiology, memory reconsolidation, and Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness to address trauma-related symptoms in the body and at the nervous system level.

Marie-Michele has a particular affinity for working with couples who are new parents, LBGTQi+ individuals and LGBTQi+ couples, biracial and multiracial couples, creatives, healers, artists, activists, young professionals, new mothers and highly sensitive persons (HSP). They see their role as a “guide” assisting you in accessing the healing powers that are within yourself and learning to develop and to strengthen your relationship with them over time. They practice from a “power with” rather than “power over” intentional psychotherapy framework, ultimately holding you as the “expert” on your own subjective experience. With couples Marie-Michele works with partners to address the trauma-related “parts cycles” that can often be at the root of some of the issues that couples come to therapy for such as difficulties with self-awareness, empathy, communication, intimacy and having non-escalating, productive conversations around finances, co-parenting and sexual intimacy to name a few.

Marie-Michele’s academic and practice experience were steeped in programs with a very strong focus on issues of identity and social justice. The latter has shaped how she practices in terms of bringing awareness to issues of privilege and intersectionality as they play out in the everyday world, including within the context of the therapeutic relationship. Thus, they (in a very human, and oftentimes failed way) aim to make room for those to be explicitly addressed when working with both individuals and couples. Marie-Michele also has worked as adjunct faculty at Pepperdine University.

They are licensed to work with clients who reside in Texas and/or California.