Elle Zambrano, PsyD, MA

People usually find me because something isn’t working. Often, this is a place of stuckness or crossroads, a tension you can’t make sense of without personal growth or change. Whatever your particular call to therapy might be, it presents an opportunity to explore and welcome the deeper change that is trying to happen within you.

As a relational psychodynamic therapist, I believe that we exist only in relationships with others; in a relationship, one is created, damaged, healed, and transformed. Each interpersonal interaction throughout one’s life informs a set of patterns, most of which are implicitly learned in childhood from primary caregivers, that guide our daily actions and govern our current and future relationships. Symptoms like depression, anxiety, shame, and fear are not the problems themselves, then, but manifestations of deeper issues, such as ineffective or hurt and fear-based patterns that don’t align with fulfilling and meaningful connections. 

If we are hurt and damaged through relationship, then only through relationship can we be healed and transformed. In a therapeutic relationship between client and therapist, we can cultivate awareness of what lies underneath your presenting symptoms so that you can integrate your past learnings about relationships such that you no longer live out ineffective patterning on repeat. My clinical approach emphasizes the development of insight that can empower you to navigate difficult emotions so that you can flourish in meaningful connection with self and others.

I earned my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Seattle, where I completed a dissertation about the human tendency to “other” parts of ourselves that we don’t like, which, on a societal level, results in racism and oppression. My border town upbringing- regularly witnessing the invisible divide between the racially and socioeconomically privileged/marginalized on the Texas-Mexico line- significantly informs my work. I approach my practice with cultural humility and a critical consciousness of the cultural and political values, structures, and systems that shape clients’ lives, empowering clients to integrate the dark and the light within and outside themselves, to reclaim their power, curiosity, spunk, and sense of playfulness, in spite of the ways in we are othered. I am extremely grateful and privileged to have had the opportunity to find the work that is fulfilling.

Outside of work, you can find me baking, dreaming of baking, hiking, reading Victorian literature, or loving on my furry dog.

 

EDUCATION

Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology

Diplôme de Pâtisserie in Pastry and Confectionary

Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages and Literature

MY AREAS OF FOCUS INCLUDE:

  • Complex trauma/adult children of emotionally immature parents 

  • Family of origin issues

  • Relational trauma

  • Abusive relationships

  • Attachment issues

  • Self-esteem and identity issues

  • Narcissistic abuse

  • Anxiety and depression

  • Anger Issues

  • Communication Issues

  • OCD

  • College students/early career adults

  • Individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds

Session Fees:

Individual or Couples Counseling: $200 - 50 minutes

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