KRISTIN HERBERT

Specialties and Certifications

Couples specialist
Parenting and co-parenting coach
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Certificate in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Experience and training in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
Specializes in couples, creatives, and others who identify as “highly sensitive”
Specializes in couples facing challenges such as having “grown apart,” processing betrayal/infidelity, and navigating stage-of-life, co-pareting, and family changes.
Offers discernment counseling
LGBTQIA+ allied
Culturally sensitive approach

Life Experience

Has experience in multiple long-term, committed relationships, including marriage, step-parenting, and co-parenting
Former careers in literary and academic book publishing, writing, and education of children with learning differences, incarcerated youth, and college students.

Education

M.A. in clinical psychology from Antioch University, Los Angeles

Approach

Imagine two different nervous systems, two divergent ways of experiencing and being in the world. Often, we find ourselves polarized, stuck in an either-or mentality, vying with the person we love most for our goodness, our truth, our most authentic way of being and being seen. In an effort to achieve a shared perspective and increase connection, we may lose ourselves and invalidate one another.

My approach is informed by curiosity and attachment theory, as well as the ability to hold complexity and paradox. Moving from an either-or to a both-and perspective, our minds can expand to imagine another point of view without sacrificing our own.

Using experiential therapy to practice new ways of being with one another, I will help you discover the best of both worlds where each of you make sense, all of your feelings are valid and important, and you can turn to one another with vulnerability. We will work in session to create shared experiences of safety so your nervous systems can re-set, and your brains and bodies can form new pathways to connection.

Other areas

Increasing Connection

A lot of couples come to therapy because over time, they have drifted apart or lost themselves in a merged couple identity. Feeling alone or lost within a relationship is common and very painful.

People often drift apart because they avoid talking about certain things or disagreeing in order not to hurt one another. Both partners may want to have difficult conversations but simply don’t know how to avoid getting stuck in well-known cycles of conflict.

Over time, couples accrue more and more of these “danger zones,” and find themselves in a relationship that may appear to be congenial but in which both partners feel alone with the subjects they long to share with one another. When this happens, both partners are hiding their most authentic, passionate selves for the sake of preserving the relationship.

But without differences, there’s nothing left to relate. Tragically, in order to “keep the peace,” partners may share only the most superficial, flat versions of themselves and one another. Resentments simmer; pain, grief, and disappointment turn in to coping behaviors that increase disconnection. The couple’s sexual connection may suffer or even flame out, and risks for infidelity arise from loneliness or a craving to feel alive again.

Each person longs to feel understood, supported, known, and loved. In couples therapy, we will lean in to challenging, important, and difficult conversations. We will practice ways of saying the unsayable, exploring boundaries that will increase and protect your intimacy, holding differences, validating one another even when you disagree, staying curious, and savoring the energy, passion, and sizzle that lives in the space between you. We will learn to tolerate and even enjoy the differences and discoveries that keep relationships interesting, dynamic, and alive.

Highly Sensitive Nervous Systems

Whether you and/or both you and your partner are diagnosed (or self-diagnosed) with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), giftedness, anxiety, depression, relational trauma, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or any number of other labels, including self-identified “creatives,” many people report having sensory overload. I understand how that feels and how it can impact relationships. I will help you identify and craft ways to support your nervous system and those of your loved ones in your home, relationships, and life.

Trust, Infidelity and Betrayal

When we love, we are vulnerable. When trust is broken, it’s hard to imagine moving forward. But it’s important to process what happened. Because the rupture was relational, so too must the healing be relational. We’ll work together to understand the patterns that contributed to this traumatic experience. We will grieve what was lost and tend to your wounded parts. Whether you are the betrayed or the betrayer, whether you choose to move through this traumatic experience separately or together, you will not be alone. I will help you make sense of what happened and re-establish safety and self-esteem.

Blended families

My lived experience comprises adoption, biological relations, step-families, divorce (and co-parenting), and blended families. Based on attachment theory, we will work together to map and understand your family of origin patterns, to express your conscious beliefs about what love means, and to explore how your behaviors reveal unknown parts about yourselves and one another. Viktor Frankl writes, “there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” In session, we will explore the space between.

Background and Education

Conceived accidentally during the “summer of love,” I was surrendered by my birth parents as an infant, then adopted and raised as one of two adopted children. Reunited with my birth parents and extended families on both sides as an adult has resulted in an inconclusive, ongoing self-study of nature and nurture.

Following my divorce as a young adult, I earned an MFA in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh in an effort to turn my heartbreak into poetry. My writer’s resume, in addition my own published poetry, fiction, journalism, and creative nonfiction, included working as a university instructor, in academic and literary book publishing, as a massage therapist, and at educational nonprofit for underserved populations including foster youth.

After my second divorce, as a single parent navigating complex relational trauma recovery and learning to accommodate and support the neurodivergence in my family, I earned a Master’s degree in clinical psychology and began training to became a therapist.

Now, I am ten years along in a blended family that includes a spectrum of diverse brains and nervous systems: those of my own and my partner, our combined four children, and our dog and cats.

I find inspiration and meaning from my ongoing work with an array of clients who share the courage to turn inward in order to better understand their experience and relate ever more deeply to themselves and the people they love most.

Areas of focus

Increasing connection and intimacy
Implementing Self-Compassion and Self-Care
Understanding and Healing Family Dysfunction
Establishing Healthy Boundaries
Processing Relational Trauma (cPTSD) & post-traumatic growth
Mapping Attachment Patterns
Processing Grief and Ambiguous Grief
Healing from Infidelity and Betrayal Trauma
Discernment Counseling
Processing Grief Related to Infertility and/or Miscarriage
Supporting Caregivers
Gaining Coping Skills
Creating Safety Within Self and Relationship
Gaining Self-Regulation and Learning Co-Regulation
Identifying and Healing Burnout
Improving Co-Parenting
Supporting Life Transitions
Coaching Parents, including Single Parents, Co-parents, Adoptive Parents, and Step-parents
Exploring Identity
LGBTQIAA+ Allied

Modalities

Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples
Existential Therapy
Experiential Therapy
Attachment-based Therapy
Compassion-focused, Humanistic Therapy
Culturally Sensitive Therapy
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Narrative Therapy
Psychodynamic/ Relational Therapy
Trauma-Informed Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Coaching

Clients

Couples
Individuals including Single Parents
Families

License

Licensed MFT #141308

Employed by New Path Couples Therapy Inc.

Contact

Phone: (424) 325-5599

Email: kristinherbert4therapy@gmail.com