My name is Amanda Sappington. I graduated in 2012 from Seattle Pacific University’s Marriage and Family Therapy program. I moved to Seattle after I completed my undergraduate studies at Biola University in La Mirada, California. My focus is on working with teens and adults, especially emerging adults. I work with people experiencing, among other things, depression, anxiety, struggles with adjustment, grief and loss, and trauma. I am trained in EMDR. I also enjoy doing couples work. I have completed Level 1 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy. I spent a year and a half working as a Domestic Violence Advocate with survivors. This experience provided me with many useful tools for working with people who grew up experiencing domestic violence in the home.
I am very interested in working with people around adjustment issues and big life transitions. Big life transitions can mean a lot of things, but some examples are: moving, graduation, relationships ending, an engagement, marriage, loss of a job, and changes in your family structure.
Very near my heart are struggles with faith and spirituality, and wounding experienced by the church or other religious organizations. I believe that these issues can be overlooked in more traditional mental health treatment, but they can have long lasting impact. If they are not addressed, they can not only impact spiritual health but mental health as well.
I grew up the daughter of missionaries, which means I grew up as a third culture kid. I was not fully grounded in either my home culture or host culture, which meant I was constantly in transition. I have seen some of the positive and negative impacts religious organizations can have on an individual firsthand. These are just some ways that my personal life experiences have informed my unique therapeutic perspective.