Sue Shrinkle-Emmons, LMFT

Recipient of the Best of Encinitas Award for 2023 & 2024 in the category of Mental Health

**Promoting Healing & Lifelong Growth**

Integrative Therapy for Women in CA, CO, & HI

If you've found your way here, chances are you're longing to feel more grounded and capable, without losing sight of the people and things that matter most to you. But between daily stress, health challenges, family demands, blurry boundaries, and the weight of past experiences, it can feel nearly impossible to catch your breath, let alone find your footing.

I believe therapy can change that. When we have a space to slow down and get honest with ourselves, something shifts. We get clearer on what we actually value, we build the emotional resilience to weather hard seasons, and we start to feel genuinely understood, maybe for the first time in a long time. That's when real change becomes possible.

You don't have to figure this out alone. I'd love to connect and explore how therapy might help you come back to yourself.

Therapy should feel like talking to someone who is genuinely in your corner. Someone curious about your inner world, deeply empathetic, and fully committed to understanding you, not just your symptoms or your story on paper.

If we work together, you'll find that I bring warmth and even laughter into the room, because real connection - the kind that actually heals - grows best in an atmosphere of ease and genuine care. Some of the most meaningful moments in therapy happen when it stops feeling clinical and starts feeling human. What matters most to me is that you leave each session feeling a little more like yourself: more settled, more seen, more connected to who you actually are beneath all the noise.

I'm not just here to guide you through a process. I'm here to genuinely know you. And I can't wait to get started.

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SPECIALTIES

Your mind and body are always in conversation, and true healing happens when we listen to both. This integrative approach looks at how your physical health, nervous system, and lived experience all shape the way you feel emotionally. So if you're navigating anxiety, depression, grief, or a major life transition, we won't just explore what's happening in your mind. We'll look at the whole picture, because what you're carrying is real, and it lives in your body too.

EMDR is an evidence-based therapy designed to help you process what hasn't fully healed yet. Whether you're carrying unresolved distress, anxiety, or experiences that still feel alive in your body, EMDR works with your nervous system to gently reduce their grip, leaving you with greater resilience and a stronger, more grounded sense of who you are.

Living with a chronic illness asks so much of you. It can quietly reshape your sense of identity, your relationships, and your vision of the future. Our work together will honor all of that. We'll move at your pace, deepen your understanding of your own experience, and create space for the grief that comes with navigating a life that may look different than you'd planned, whether that's a new diagnosis or a loss that keeps unfolding over time.

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Brainspotting is a powerful, body-based therapy that works beneath the level of conscious thought. By locating specific eye positions that correspond to where you hold unprocessed pain, trauma, or stress in your nervous system, we're able to access and release what talk therapy alone sometimes can't reach. It's a gentle yet profound way to help your brain and body finally let go, and find their way back to ease.

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The Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) is an evidence-based listening therapy that uses specially filtered music to help regulate your nervous system from the inside out. If sounds feel overwhelming, social connection feels effortful, or your body just can't seem to settle, SSP works gently and non-invasively to shift your autonomic state, making it easier to feel safe, present, and open to the world around you.

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Maybe you're running on empty, overextended, overwhelmed, and wondering when you stopped feeling like yourself. Perhaps the boundaries that once felt manageable have blurred, and with them, your sense of who you are. Or you're navigating a health challenge that has shifted the ground beneath you in ways you're still trying to make sense of.

Wherever you're starting from, therapy offers a place to come back to yourself. Together, we'll get clear on what you value, practice genuine self-compassion, and find ways to show up fully, for yourself and for the people you love, without running on fumes. Joy isn't out of reach. Let's find your way back to it.

How Can I Support You?

Finding a therapist can be overwhelming and emotional. How I can support you on your journey?

Schedule your free phone Consultation