Marlene Muller, MA, LMHCA

I offer client-centered therapy to individual adults for a wide variety of relational, emotional, and psychological difficulties including anxiety, depression, trauma, major life shifts, spirituality issues, and making one’s way meaningfully in a changing, challenging world.

My Work

It can take courage to consider what therapy might be like for you. I understand therapy as exploring together in a safe and inviting space how a person experiences life and encounters various emotional concerns along the way. Each therapeutic relationship is unique. With care, you and I can take a close look around to see where you are now, how you got here, and where you’d like to be. We can also notice how your ways of being in the world were useful to you in the past, how they are still useful, and how those ways may no longer help or feel true to who you are now.

My Belief

“If you let your thought play,” William Stafford wrote, “turn things this way and that, be ready for liveliness, alternatives, new views, the possibility of another world – you are in the area of poetry.” I believe you are also in the area of therapy. I practice psychodynamic, relationally focused therapy, and the poetry I’ve read, written, and published throughout my life has brought me insight, consolation and pleasure. My understanding of human development is informed by our early attachments and the ways those experiences shape our relationships in the present. With shared trust, the intended outcome of therapy is to travel together into areas that will grow and strengthen a person’s capacity to live life more fully alive.

My Background

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate (LMHCA) with a Masters in Counseling Psychology Degree from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology.  I have spent time as a counselor for university students and I was a teacher for 15 years.  My teaching experience included consulting with parents, colleagues, and other psychological resources in order to best assist with student emotional and academic success.  I have led mindfulness and spirituality practices for 20 years with adolescents and adults of all ages, both for individuals and in groups in Seattle.  I have also taught in a wilderness retreat setting in the North Cascade mountain range. I offer client-centered therapy for a wide variety of relational, emotional, and psychological difficulties including anxiety, depression, trauma, major life shifts, spirituality issues, and making one’s way meaningfully in a changing, challenging world.

My Self

I enjoy hiking, and the one technical climb I managed was as a young mother on Mt. Hood. At the summit I thought mostly about getting back down. Wendell Berry wrote:

      It may be that when we no longer know what to do
      we have come to our real work,
      and that when we no longer know which way to go
      we have come to our real journey.
      The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
      The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Contact

Please use the contact form below to learn about Marlene’s availability.