About Nurtured Hope

At Nurtured Hope, we can help you find calm, happiness, and empowerment.

We equip you with the tools you need to chase your passions, contain the feelings of chaos, soothe your worries, and assert the boundaries that get your needs met!

We specialize in parent-child connection (for infants, children, and teens), neurodivergent-affirming skills, support across the lifespan, anxiety, depression, and trauma. We don’t just enjoy working with these groups, though we genuinely do!

We are both Certified Autplay Practitioners and are EMDR trained, while Patricia is also a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor (RPT-S). We strive to provide a balance of lived experience and affirming professional approaches that make a difference.

Many of today’s solutions for neurodivergent support are compliance-based, unfamiliar with the autistic advocacy movement, designed to encourage “masking behaviors,” and/or reliant on external reinforcers over collaboration.

Therapy for neurodivergent children can involve corrections on everything from how they speak to how they hold their bodies to make them seem more neurotypical. This often leads them to have shattered self-esteem and lots of big feelings about going to a therapist, making families feel apprehensive about seeking therapeutic support.

We respect the neurodivergent experience.

We are neurodivergent therapists with neurodivergent tweens who understand this world from multiple directions. We listen to autistic voices, research the most up-to-date therapy approaches, assess for necessary modifications for neurodivergent populations, and trust our clients to tell us their goals and what steps they choose to achieve them.

Generalized approaches for children and teens can include planned ignoring, time-outs, reward and punishment systems, and other strategic methods for demanding obedience without first focusing on the critical importance of a regulated relationship between parent and child that fosters communication, collaboration, and mutual respect.

As Registered Play Therapist Supervisor and Certified Autplay practitioners, we have spent hundreds of hours studying various ways to communicate through a child’s first language of play. Autplay is a form of play therapy dedicated to neurodivergent acceptance, focusing on the same language of play with an understanding and appreciation of neurodivergent individuals. We don’t just enjoy working within these interests, though we genuinely do. We’ve taken the time to advance our training and become certified in our areas of focus.

We believe in self-determination.

We don’t believe in anyone having therapy “done to them” or getting “fixed” by a cookie-cutter, prescribed treatment they have no investment in.

As a client, you must be empowered with the knowledge of your options for a meaningful journey. We know that clients have the answers within themselves. Any healing or change can remain externalized and fragmented if you are not collaborating on your pace, interventions, and goals (regardless of age). When clients embrace their own path, they integrate the strength, courage, joy, and relief they need to make their desired changes last.

You’ve already gotten this far. You know your strengths, and you know your will. We will seek to single out your strong areas, the exceptions to the challenges you struggle with, and what feels right before anything else.

When we feel heard, felt, and seen for who we authentically are, especially our strengths, we see huge differences in how well things go in therapy. You know yourself better than anyone else, and that knowledge is integral to how we proceed.

We believe in therapy in steps.

The idea of therapy can feel uncomfortable or even overwhelming, especially if you haven’t worked with anyone before. New experiences, in general, tend to create some adrenaline or anxiety. For most, sharing your personal thoughts, feelings, and past with a stranger is daunting. It takes trust and a whole lot of bravery to sit in that chair, and we fully recognize that.

That’s part of why we believe therapy comes in steps at Nurtured Hope.

We always start where you are. We listen to understand with curiosity and an open mind. We take our time. We want you to feel comfortable and safe; we want the space we share to feel safe.

When you feel comfortable, we start building resources and strategies. Once you’re feeling anchored, you can tackle anything you set your thoughts to.

When you’re ready, we can flesh out goals and explore options for therapeutic approaches. We invite you to consider approaches that may align with your desires for future change, and you choose what you consent to. It’s your path, and you know where you need to be.

When we work together, you’ll always get these three things…

We believe that what we call the 3 C’s are critical elements to any therapy a person receives, whether with us or for other members of your therapeutic team. We understand Connection, Consent, and Collaboration as the foundation of individual therapeutic empowerment.

Connection

Connection is seeing, hearing, and genuinely noticing the other person. It is the doorway to coregulation. For as we are calm, we invite calm.

In fact, the underlying root of so many behaviors is a basic human need for connection. Without connection, we have no coregulation, and without being seen and helped to calm by another early on, we don’t fully achieve the ability to self-regulate. We learn to self-regulate through our experience and practice with coregulation with our earliest caregivers. Consequently, connection (and the repair of lost opportunities for it) is the foundation of any therapy work you may seek to do.

Consent

The underlying drive for most behaviors is connection.

There are so many ways with and without words, that we can give or deny consent. If we are seen when we say no with our cues and our bodies, we feel safety and trust.

A therapist must be mindful and alert to readiness cues, as they can be as simple as freezing, becoming quiet, or redirecting the conversation. We are noticing your language, through words and body, so that you know that you are safe and in charge of the pace of any steps we take. No matter what problem you’re trying to solve, whether you’re an adult, teen, or child, you choose what, when, and how fast we proceed.

Collaboration

Everything we will do in therapy is collaborative. It is your space and your visit. As we hear your story and goals, we will develop a bit of a roadmap, and you will decide what, where, and when all the stops will be.

We are all about that felt sense of safety. If you don’t feel safe, you won’t be able to think. And we don’t feel safe when we feel we may be pressured or coerced into doing things we don’t emotionally feel ready for. We will know and explore ideas together when you’re ready to take different steps. All that we do in therapy is a collaborative process.

We utilize your unique strengths, talents, and capabilities for optimal outcomes. With a strong therapeutic alliance, we can overcome any challenges you face, and we believe in doing that together.

Share options for what you want and then collaborate on the best ways to incorporate those approaches. We work together on the steps you feel comfortable with, the path that’s yours, and we offer the invitation.

We want you to feel safe, seen, and heard.

You have to feel that way before any therapeutic action can take place.

You must know that you’re in a safe space – that you can completely trust your therapist and that no harm will come to you. You can’t be open and honest if you don’t feel safe.

We want to get to know you – to see and hear what is meaningful, joyful, and challenging for you. We want to know when you’ve felt successful and where you’ve struggled. We want to know how your work, family, and children intersect with your goals.

We’re not here to judge. We want to know all there is to know about your story. Whether it comes in parts, over some time, in between long pauses and tears, or flooding in all at once, we are here to share that space with you if you’ll let us.