Clare Comstock, LCSW, SEP

In my psychotherapy practice, I combine Somatic Psychotherapy, Mindfulness, Jungian Psychology, Inner child (and other parts) work, cognitive approaches, and more. I see compassion as the field for healing. I have considerable experience in helping clients with Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, Attachment Issues, Grief, Shame, Self Esteem Issues, Aging and Self Growth.
I also enjoy working with other therapists in their ongoing self discovery and healing.

I see most every symptom, inner experience, or internal state as trying to grow us, pointing the way to more wholeness and aliveness. As James Hillman suggests "In your symptoms are your soul's greatest desires." I find myself asking the question, what is trying to emerge here? What needs to be tended to, listened to, in these challenges we find ourselves in. Sometimes both mind and body are caught in old defensive/protective patterns that developed at an earlier time to survive, and we can experience ourselves and the world as if we were still in that past situation or trauma. In addition to exploring childhood dynamics, past experiences, and traumas, I also look at the cultural and societal influences that shape our idea of who we think we should be. What aspects of our psyche have been unknowingly relegated to the unconscious in response to messages from the society we live in about what is OK or not OK, Good or Bad?
I interweave several therapy styles and lens including Mindfulness and Meditation, Somatic Psychotherapy, Jungian Psychology, including dreams and shadow work, Cognitive approaches, and my own unique style of working with the different internal Parts .
Mindfulness and Meditation bring active awareness to our internal states; learning to notice what thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, motivations, and inner experiences are present in the current moment. As we learn to witness our moment to moment inner landscape, we begin to enter into a conscious relationship with ourself. There is room to pause and relate to and tend to what is coming up, rather than reacting to it unconsciously. We begin to see patterns and triggers and different parts of ourself.
I am certified in Somatic Experiencing (SE), a somatic psychotherapy approach, tracking sensations in the body, facilitating the release of bound up survival energies and thereby helping the nervous system reregulate. Protective holding patterns in the body can unwind and when our systems are more regulated we can experience a sense of increased safety, flow, and aliveness both internally and in our interactions with the outer world.
Jungian Psychology, based on the work of Carl Jung, is about the inner journey towards wholeness, exploring dreams, myths, metaphor, archetypal themes and energies in the individual and the larger society. We human beings have many aspects of our personalities that are sometimes conflicting or we experience them as conflicting. Different societies, cultures and family systems support certain qualities and energies and reject others. Symptoms, such as depression and anxiety can be guides to parts that have been split off and repressed. This is often referred to as the Shadow. Therapy can help to bring these parts to consciousness so they can be met and related to.
Please visit my website for more about my practice.