Sharon Sheppard, LMFT-S
It all starts with understanding.
The work I’ve chosen
I’ve spent more than a decade sitting with people in some incredibly difficult places.
Much of my clinical work has focused on trauma—the experiences we readily recognize as traumatic and the quieter experiences we may never have thought of that way.
The childhood you describe as “fine.”
The relationship that changed the way you see yourself.
The loss you thought you should be over by now.
The spiritual hurt that left you with questions you’ve never quite resolved.
The years of being strong because somebody had to be.
Today, my clinical practice is focused exclusively on EMDR Intensives, helping women understand and heal the experiences that continue to show up in their lives today.
I’m also an AAMFT Approved Supervisor and have spent years teaching and supervising developing marriage and family therapists.
Those might sound like two completely different kinds of work.
To me, they really aren’t.
Sometimes I’m sitting with a woman trying to understand herself.
Sometimes I’m sitting with a therapist trying to understand a client.
And sometimes I’m sitting with a therapist trying to understand what’s happening inside of her when she's with that client.
That might be my favorite work of all.
There’s usually a reason
I’ve spent much of my career being curious about why people do what they do.
Why can someone know they’re safe and still not feel safe?
Why does the woman who takes care of everyone have such a hard time letting someone take care of her?
Why does a therapist who knows she isn’t responsible for fixing her client suddenly feel like she needs to do exactly that?
There’s usually a reason.
We learn ways of thinking, reacting, relating, and protecting ourselves because, at some point, they worked.
The trouble comes when what helped us then starts getting in the way of how we want to live, or practice, now.
I believe there is something powerful about replacing judgment with curiosity.
Because once we understand a little more about the why, we can start figuring out what comes next.
And sometimes, understanding is where hope begins.