Find a Therapist in Port Townsend, WA

You know how when things are moving too fast and you reach for the "chill" button and it's nowhere in sight? Or, perhaps you're feeling so shut down that you can't find some "giddy up and go" if your life depended on it? Don't give up! I'm here to help. Here's a curious thing...ever notice how body stuff is so front-and-central in twigging to signs of stress? And, how often we shove these signals away as annoyances and "park them at the curb". For the most part, we typically run away from seemingly negative physical symptoms, deferring to the "whys" or thoughts about what's happening. The good news is that when you discover the "wisdom" of nagging body sensations, ease out of stuck emotional states, and shift away from relentless negative self-talk, you've turned a major corner into feeling better on so many levels. I welcome the opportunity to help you learn how to go deeper within yourself and experience mind-body-spirit healing. Give me a call today!

In addition to my training and education in counseling, I rely on more than 20+ years of experience studying human performance, human behavior, and organizational behavior in my previous careers in sports, business, and marketing. I bring to my work a broad multicultural and international experience, after living, working, or studying in half a dozen countries. I see my role as your partner in growth, who works to help you discover your own resilience so you can create the life you deserve. My clients find me helpful at managing an array of difficulties, including relationship problems, sexual trauma, breaking free of a rut, managing anxiety, and moving into personal discover and growth, among other issues. I offer a safe, supportive, nonjudgmental, and encouraging space. We work together to help you uncover your true beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors, then use this insight to help you create a pattern of success. I also created my own trade marked therapy approach Positive Existential Therapy or PET to address client challenges that were not responding to outdated counseling techniques. While I fully maintain my license as a professional counselor in multiple US states, I now exclusively offer coaching services.

Ideally, I work with clients who are seeking deeper understanding and meaningful change, often after experiencing trauma, emotional pain, or life transitions. They come to my practice feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or searching for clarity and healing. Together, we create a safe, compassionate space, and I use evidence-based and insight-oriented approaches to help you build awareness, develop resilience, and move forward with greater purpose and stability. I work with couples and individuals. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in Florida, I build trust with my psychotherapy clients by creating a safe, nonjudgmental space, listening deeply, and showing consistent respect for their experiences. I understand how difficult it can be to feel stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure where to turn, and you don’t have to face that alone. If you’re ready to take a step toward healing and understanding, I warmly invite you to reach out. Together, we can begin creating a path forward that feels safe, supportive, and meaningful.

Spanish and English speaking. Accepting new patients in person and via telehealth for couples, families, substance use condition groups, and individuals. Therapists in my practice also accept couples counseling, with evening time slots still available for those who work, as well as morning and daytime options. Pedro Ruiz is a licensed mental health counselor in Washington who has been practicing since 2017. Outside of work, Pedro is an advanced chess player who enjoys the art of solving problems, singing (salsa music), spending time with family, trying new food, and traveling. He enjoys working with adults, families, and couples. He has a Master of Science in professional counseling, with 17+ years of experience with addiction counseling, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress (PTSD), and trauma. He likes working on couples issues using emotionally focused therapy (EFT) and the Gottman approach. Pedro is fluent in Spanish and English. Pedro strives to listen actively, gain an understanding of the underlying issues and challenges, and provide guidance to overcome, find relief, and experience healing from emotional and psychological pain.

I welcome you to come as you are. I consider our collaborative therapeutic relationship an authentic meeting of equals. I understand you as essentially good, worthy, unique, and capable. In this relationship, your voice matters. And if you're not feeling confident just yet, I'll help you cultivate your authentic voice. I'll help you see your existing strengths and skills, and we'll build on them for further growth. I approach healing and growth holistically and appreciate you as multi-faceted: feeling, thinking, physical, social, and spiritual. Together, we'll consider how to bring these various aspects of you into balance to create your experience of enhanced well-being. My approach to our work is both insight-oriented: we'll seek to understand what's driving your current challenges, and solution-focused: with these new understandings in mind, we'll explore new choices to effect the change you seek. We'll explore the interplay between what's conscious to you now and underlying dynamics that may not yet be fully conscious. We'll aim to bring subconscious dynamics into your fuller awareness to empower your informed agency and choices that are more attuned to your authentic needs and goals. We'll pay closer attention to your habitual thought patterns and consider how unexamined thoughts can sometimes trigger feelings and reactions that haven't been helpful for you. We'll consider expanded perspectives for more integrated, effective views of yourself and others. With mindfulness practice, you'll shift gears from a hurried running on autopilot to a more steady, intentional curiosity and presence to what's unfolding in the here and now. Our therapeutic relationship will serve as a tool for learning about your relationship style and patterns. I draw therapeutic perspective largely from a trauma-informed attachment lens, exploring how your earliest attachments, especially with family of origin, shaped your internal emotional blueprint and expectations about relationships, and how that underlying script has played out, often repeatedly, in your adult relationships. Understanding these early influences allows us to rewrite relationship narratives with informed choice, hanging on to the parts that work, letting go of those that don't. I also draw influence from existential, sociological, systemic, and feminist lenses, exploring the reciprocal interplay between internal landscapes and external social landscapes and influences. My work with couples is influenced by a trauma-informed attachment lens and draws from training in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), Gottman, and Non-Violent Communication (NVC). I bring humility, respect, and genuine interest to our collaboration. My style is down-to-earth, non-pathologizing, and interactive, with healthy doses of humor (when appropriate). I welcome diversity of all kinds and embrace a social justice perspective. I've been in practice as a psychotherapist since 2000.

Functioning isn't the same as fulfilled. From the outside, your life probably looks fine — maybe even impressive. But somewhere along the way, holding it together became the only way you knew how to be, and you're tired. Strategies like overthinking, overextending, and pushing through made sense once. They kept you safe, connected, or helped you succeed. But now the part of you that learned to be fine is overriding the part of you that actually wants to be known. I work with clients who can see their patterns but still feel stuck.

Whether you’re looking to free yourself from the weight of anxiety, set healthy boundaries, better understand your reactions, or improve your relationship, quality therapy can make all the difference. I strive to create a therapy environment that is authentic, warm, and free of judgment so that you can get right to the important work of self-discovery and self-improvement. I provide both individual and couple therapy for adults, operating a fully Telehealth practice (all sessions are done via secure video calls). As a trained generalist, I am equipped to help clients facing a range of difficulties, such as anxiety, depression, and persistent anger. I also have specialized training in two evidence-based trauma treatments (Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure) that are designed to help people take their power back from traumatic memories. With couples, I use a method of treatment called Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy that works by guiding both partners past breakdowns in communication to come to a new, fuller understanding of each other and the relationship. I would be honored to help you cultivate the life that you want for yourself. Please reach out for a brief phone call to determine if we’d be a good fit.

I view successful therapy as an experience where your strengths and values are supported while you navigate toward your chosen life direction. You may struggle with tuning into your needs leading to challenges in maintaining the right balance. You may be working toward cultivating a more positive relationship with yourself. You may be experiencing anxiety due to painful and stressful life experiences. You may be feeling destabilized due to isolation, lack of structure, or self-doubt. Throughout my career and life, I gained valuable insight into the human capacity to be amazingly resilient when adequate supports are available. I believe that our spirit knows how to heal and I will partner with you as you align your life with your aspirations and pursue your goals. I have a collaborative style and my demeanor is personable, nonjudgemental, and empathetic and I provide a supportive space with warmth, humor (yes, humor), encouragement, and gentle challenging. As a member of the social justice and healing community for 30 years, I have a genuine affinity for people which comes through in my counseling style. **All sessions are provided virtually for your comfort and convenience.**

I love serving people with their change process. I have 38 years of counseling experience and several years prior as a special educator, and I offer experience with work-life balance, leadership, and career consulting. Always learning, my knowledge base is very broad. I like to apply it selectively, dependent on a careful assessment of your needs, and the feedback I get from you; presence for me is very important. Supporting people to be creative, skillful, and integrated is an art. The context for healing comes out of relationship, so I will do all I can to help you to mastery, whether it be a relationship to yourself or to others. I am extremely empathic and naturally offer trust. It is always an honor to work with those who come through my door.

I am a geek, and a therapist. I work with individuals, couples and families and I specialize in working with geeks, gamers, and people who work in the tech industry. If you're struggling in your relationships with your partner or family members, or simply feeling anxious or sad and you're not sure why, I can help. We can work together to find the tools and strength that you need to create positive change. I often help people with social skill growth, anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorders, grief, and communication. My primary focus is in helping families and individuals from various backgrounds and cultures explore new ways to tackle the hurdles and challenges in front of them. I have established a specialty in working within the "geek" and "tech" environments by being able to communicate on a more familiar level regarding video games, card and board games, anime, and computer software technology. When working with families my focus is to help facilitate better communication and establish more functional patterns of communication. With individuals we will work on identifying the areas that you struggle and finding solutions that last. Either way my focus is in helping my clients find lasting and positive change.

I work with clients across Washington state and the greater Seattle area, offering individual therapy using insight-oriented, and mindfulness-based approaches as well as EMDR. I meet with clients using an online or telehealth platform. My focus is on helping adult men facing depression, anxiety, trauma, and life transitions; working with them to build the self-awareness and tools needed to shift old patterns of thinking and behavior that no longer serve them. I help my clients to slow down, look inward, and meet life more skillfully. When trauma or emotional overwhelm occurs, the nervous system can get "stuck" in the experience. I am trained in EMDR, a technique that works to supporting and strengthen a client’s own nervous system's capacity to process difficult events, allowing that stuck experience to move and resolve. Sessions run about 55 minutes, with our first few focused on clarifying your goals. I know taking that first step isn't easy. If you'd like to explore whether we're a good fit, reach out to schedule a free 20-minute consultation - I'll answer your questions and we can talk through what you're looking for. I look forward to meeting you.

If you’re someone who prioritizes other people's needs over your own, if you question your deservingness and worth, if you feel sensitive and overwhelmed by an intense world, if your perfectionism won’t let you relax, or if your physical and mental health are impacting your relationships and quality of life, I am really glad you are here. Many of these issues can leave you feeling isolated, lost, directionless or lacking a sense of identity and purpose. I use a holistic approach help my clients discover and change their patterns of behavior formed by being othered in their day to day life, chronic stress, chronic illness, family dysfunction and trauma. My clients tend to be those who experience oppression, people in the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, 1st and 2nd generation immigrants, highly sensitive people, those with chronic illness, and those who work high stress jobs sometimes including secondary trauma. I welcome all walks of life to this space and strive to help you feel safe enough to unravel the complexity of who you are, with me as your witness. The therapy I provide asks you to be brave enough to go into deeper and more vulnerable places where you can unearth how you truly feel and experience the world. Therapy with me will help you move you towards living more authentically, recover your sense of purpose, awe and meaning, and hopefully live a more peaceful life. I use Internal Family Systems, EMDR, strengths-based, relational healing and somatic awareness therapies to help you heal your traumas, phobias, negative beliefs, etc. I offer a free 20-minute consultation and look forward to hearing more about what brings you to therapy.