Susannah Benton, LPC

Being human in the world today can feel like a lot to carry. Whether you are navigating complex trauma, exploring your neurodiversity, moving through grief, or feeling the heavy weight of climate and political anxiety, your feelings make sense. I offer virtual and outdoor nature-based therapy that honors both your body's story and the macro world we live in.

Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here.
In the face of pain, we all find ways to survive. Sometimes we cope in ways that feel entirely out of our control—compulsive behaviors, emotionally shutting down, or "snapping." Many of us live with a relentless, self-judging voice inside our heads and a deep, painful disconnection from our bodies.

Here is what I want you to know: Your symptoms are not your failures.

Whether it is anxiety, depression, emotional reactivity, relationship struggles, or stuck patterns, these are actually your best attempts at self-regulation. They are brilliant adaptations you learned very young to keep you safe and connected with your caregivers. They are communications from unintegrated parts of yourself. Together, we can learn to welcome them as guides—even when it feels reluctant or painful. We honor both the wisdom of your early survival strategies and your present desire for change. These are learned responses, and they can be unlearned.

Our Capacity for Change (The Science of Hope)
The foundational belief underpinning my life's work is our innate capacity for transformation. This isn't just wishful thinking; it is rooted in my own lived experience, my professional work with clients, and the overwhelming conclusions of neuroscience.
The nervous system is plastic. It is fully capable of reorganizing its connections, structure, and functions. Just as our brains and bodies adapted to adverse experiences that overwhelmed our ability to cope, we can change again by learning more effective skills for regulation and self-soothing. However you are suffering, I deeply know and believe that change is possible.

How We’ll Work Together
I offer healing-centered psychotherapy that builds on your innate adaptiveness and deepens your lived resilience. My role is to actively attune to you for co-regulation. This allows experiences that feel individually overwhelming to be safely held in a co-created relational field. Within this space, we bring the light of conscious attention to areas of suffering so they can be felt, processed, and released. Together, we will practice tools to develop the inner space for holding discomfort, transforming self-criticism, and reinhabiting your being—opening the door to presence, joy, and connection.
In addition to virtual sessions, I offer nature-based walk and talk psychotherapy. This brings the traditional work of therapy into a natural setting while incorporating physical movement. As a client, I found my own most profound healing after integrating these elements. This paradigm is a game-changer for people who feel stuck in therapy—those who have found plenty of insight but find themselves repeating the same old behaviors.

Shifting from Self-Blame to Systemic Awareness
I recognize the deeper context of our struggles. It is impossible to heal the individual without acknowledging the internalized shame and isolation that comes from being raised and living in what bell hooks succinctly called an "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchal culture.”
We all share deep needs for community, ceremony, pleasure, connection, and good work. When these needs go unmet on a macro scale, it deeply impacts our individual functioning. Understanding this systemic context helps us shift away from self-blame and move toward a tone of being gentle, reverent, and understanding with ourselves, our needs, and our wounds.

Beyond the Therapy Room (A Little About Me)
I love being outside—hiking, swimming, walking, resting, playing, and gardening. As someone who grew up in Brooklyn, NY, the joy of the wilderness came to me later in life, but it feels like a remembering, a homecoming. I am a neurodivergent mom, and I find immense healing in parenting my two children, dancing, reading, writing, singing, sharing food, and enjoying community.
I have engaged in kinesthetic and contemplative practices for over two decades; at one time, these practices saved my life, and today they enrich it immeasurably.
I come to this work from my own experiences with dysregulation and internal fractures. My own healing journey is what led me to become a therapist, and I feel privileged to share in these intimate explorations. I am personally exploring how my identities (among them being a U.S.-born cis white woman) intersect with our broader cultural landscape, actively identifying and uprooting the ways I have internalized and continue to perpetuate oppressive systems. This is lifelong work.

Credentials & Deep Dives
I am incredibly passionate about this work and am a training enthusiast—always learning, always expanding. I was first licensed as a psychotherapist in New York in 2012 and have worked with clients in New York City, Baltimore, and now Austin. I am currently licensed as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Texas.
My practice draws from extensive, specialized training in holistic, mind-body, and liberation-focused modalities, including:
• Internal Family Systems (IFS) / Parts Work
• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy & Somatic Experiencing
• Circle of Security Parenting™ (Registered Facilitator focused on supporting parents in developing secure attachment with their children)
• Somatic Abolitionism & Embodied Social Justice
• Embodied Ancestral Inquiry
• STAIR (Self-Trust and Integrated Resilience)
• Polyvagal Theory & Interpersonal Neurobiology