About
Healing doesn't mean forgetting. It means no longer carrying the weight every day.
MJ Valentine
MA, LMHCA
- License
- Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate, Washington State
- Focus
- EMDR and integrative trauma therapy
- Clients
- Adults, 18 and over
- Sessions
- SeaTac office and Washington-wide telehealth
The short version
I'm MJ Valentine, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate offering compassionate, evidence-based therapy for adults navigating trauma, anxiety, grief, and life transitions.
Most people who find their way to me have already tried. They have read the books, learned the breathing, explained their childhood out loud to someone competent — and still find themselves flinching at things that are objectively over. That is not a willpower problem. Insight and relief live in different parts of the brain, and talking to the part that understands does not always reach the part that reacts.
That is the gap EMDR is built for, and it is why I have made it the center of my practice. I work with a device called a TheraTapper rather than eye movements — gentle bilateral vibration you hold, sit on, or tape to your back — which means you can keep your eyes closed and stay in your own body while we work.
What "integrative" means here
EMDR is the spine of the work, but nobody arrives as a single memory. Around the reprocessing I bring nervous-system and somatic awareness, grounding and resourcing skills you can use between sessions, attention to core beliefs and the family patterns that installed them, and honest crisis planning before any of the harder work starts.
Practically, that means some weeks look like classic reprocessing and other weeks look like teaching your body what calm feels like so it has something to compare the alarm to. Both are the treatment.
How I hold the room
Warm, direct, and unhurried. I will not be shocked by what you tell me and I will not rush you toward a version of yourself that is easier for other people. I will also tell you the truth about pacing — including when I think we should slow down, which clients sometimes find frustrating and almost always find correct in hindsight.
You are not broken. You are a person who adapted to survive. And now it's time to help your nervous system realize that it's safe to stop surviving — and start living.
What I believe about this work
Four things I will not compromise on.
Symptoms are solutions that outlived their usefulness
I will not ask you to stop coping. I will ask what the coping was protecting, and whether it still needs to.
Safety before depth, every time
Reprocessing does not begin until you have resourcing skills and a crisis plan you actually believe in. Pacing is a clinical decision, not a scheduling one.
You are the authority on your own life
I bring the map of how trauma behaves. You bring the territory. Neither is much use alone.
It did not start with you, and it can stop with you
Patterns move through families through what gets modeled and what gets passed down biologically. Naming that is not blame — it is context.
Curious whether we'd work well together?
A consult call costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If I'm not the right therapist for what you're carrying, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.