Stephanie Conlee, LMSW/CCTS-I

I’m a trauma-informed, attachment-based therapist who brings warmth, curiosity, and a place to get comfy as we make sense of what you’re carrying and find your way forward together.

Hi, I’m Stephanie. Come in, get comfy. You can take a minute to arrive before figuring out where to begin. Bring the things you have rehearsed saying and the things you still cannot quite find words for. We can start with whatever made it through the door with you.
Maybe you understand a great deal about yourself already. You can explain your patterns, recognize your triggers, and tell yourself all the reasonable things. Your body still braces. Your thoughts still circle. You still find yourself wondering why knowing better has not made this feel any easier. I am curious about that space between what you understand and what you experience, and about what happens when we give it some room.
Maybe you have become very good at being the person who manages. You notice what everyone needs, think several steps ahead, and keep going even when you are tired. You might have plenty of words for what is happening around you and have a harder time answering, “What is this like for you?” We can take our time with that question. Sometimes getting to have your own experience, with someone staying curious beside you, is meaningful work all by itself.
I’m a Licensed Master Social Worker and Certified Clinical Trauma Specialist at Affinity Counseling Center, where I practice under the clinical supervision of Jonathan Statt. I work with adults, teens ages 16 and older, and couples. My work is rooted in trauma and attachment, with close attention to your nervous system, your relationships, and the ways you have learned to get through.
I want to understand what life feels like from inside your experience. What happens when someone’s tone changes? Where do you go inside yourself when a conversation gets difficult? What do you find yourself carrying after everyone else seems to have moved on? Your answers help us understand where you need support and what we might approach differently together.
You may find me with my shoes off, feet curled in under me as I am listening closely. I bring warmth, curiosity, and a willingness to stay with something that matters. I will ask questions, share what I am noticing, and help us return to the places that need our attention. We can make room for tenderness and still have honest conversations. There is room for laughter here, too, including the kind that shows up in the middle of something hard.
I draw from Internal Family Systems and parts work, somatic and polyvagal approaches, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Exposure and Response Prevention. These approaches give us different ways to work with what you are experiencing. We might get curious about the part of you that wants closeness and the part already preparing for it to hurt. We might notice what your body does when you try to rest, ask for something, or say no. We might practice making a meaningful choice while uncertainty comes along for the ride.
Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we slow down enough to notice what happens before the words arrive. Music, creativity, movement, and a little humor have a place here, too. We can pay attention to which ways of working help you feel present and connected, and adjust as we learn together. You get to tell me when something fits, when it misses, and when you need us to try another way.
Trauma can show up in the ordinary moments of a day: an apology you offer before you know what you did, a conversation you keep replaying, the exhaustion that follows holding yourself together. We can explore those moments with care, including the ways your responses may have helped you get through something difficult. We can also make room for how much those same responses may be asking of you now.
For some people, our work includes anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or the exhausting pull to get something completely figured out before moving forward. We can look at what happens when your mind asks for another round of checking, reviewing, or reassurance, and practice responding in ways that give you more room to live. Your values can help us find a direction even when certainty is unavailable.
With couples, I bring that same warmth and curiosity into the space between you. I pay attention to the conversation you are having and what happens underneath it: the question that feels too risky to ask, the hurt that comes out sideways, or the moment one person reaches while the other pulls away. I help you slow those moments down so each of you has a better chance of understanding what is happening and choosing how to respond.
We may practice asking a clearer question, staying present long enough to hear an answer, naming a need, or finding your way back after a painful exchange. I want our work to help you carry something useful into the moments when you are tired, hurt, or struggling to reach each other at home.
LGBTQ+ people and relationships are welcome here, including families and partnerships that do not fit neatly into familiar boxes. Your beliefs, questions, identities, and lived experiences belong in the room. I want to learn the language you use for your life and understand what matters to you. Faith can be part of our work when that is something you want, and you are welcome to bring questions, uncertainty, or complicated experiences with faith, too.
You may be used to being thoughtful about everyone else’s time, feelings, and capacity. That can follow you into therapy, too. You might catch yourself making a painful story shorter, finding something kind to say about the person who hurt you, or telling me you are okay when we have only just reached the thing that matters. I want to get curious with you about those moments. What happens when we let your experience have a little more time before moving on?
You can ask us to stay with something. You can tell me, “I know we have talked about this before, but it still hurts,” or “I need you to understand this part before we go anywhere else.” If those words are difficult to find, we can work on finding them together. Getting to recognize a need and let another person know about it can be a meaningful part of what happens here.
Our relationship matters in this work. You can tell me if a question landed strangely, if I moved too quickly, or if there was something you wanted to say and could not quite get out. We can return to it. Those conversations help me know you better and help us build a space where your experience has room to be spoken.
We can also make room for what is getting better. I want to hear about the conversation you handled differently, the boundary you held while your stomach did somersaults, or the afternoon you enjoyed without spending it preparing for something to go wrong. We can pause long enough for you to notice what that felt like and what helped make it possible. Your joy, curiosity, and growing sense of yourself deserve some time in the room, too.
Sometimes you need someone willing to sit beside you in the heart of it long enough for your nervous system to begin recognizing that you are not there alone. From there, we get curious together. We notice what hurts, what protects you, what you want to keep, and what you are ready to practice differently. We make room for the small changes, too: catching something sooner, asking for a little more time, or noticing that you responded to yourself with a kindness that used to be difficult to find.
I do so love the work that we get to do. I love getting to know the particular person in front of me: your humor, your way of making sense of things, the things that light you up, and the things you are still learning how to want. There is something deeply meaningful about getting to know you as you are, and making room for the newness of you as you emerge.
You can come with questions about all of this. You can take a breath, get settled, and let me get to know you. We have somewhere to begin.