Amber Sutliff, licensed mental health counselor in the state of florida
Welcome to your first step towards reconnection
Many of us have learned to survive through a state of disconnection. Whether that has involved isolating from others, numbing your emotions, ignoring your body’s physical cues, or a general sense of “spacing out”, disconnection may have become your comfort zone.
This disconnection often comes with a complicated relationship with food and body image. This is not defined by a diagnosis or a specific weight range. If it is significant enough to cause distress, it is significant enough to seek support.
I believe that the point of therapy is connection. And in that connection with a safe person in a safe environment, you get the opportunity to learn how to reconnect with yourself. This comes with reconnecting with other people, with your emotions, and gradually, with your own body. That idea may be terrifying right now. Maybe you have never had that sense of connection with yourself. It may not even seem possible. And I am here to help you see that possibility and live it for yourself, gradually and at your own pace, just as I have learned to do through my own work.
I am passionate about helping others overcome eating disorders and trauma due to my own lived experience with them, and my own therapeutic work that showed me I am more than them.
I pursued my Bachelors degree in Psychology at Florida Atlantic University, where I returned and obtained my Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I am a licensed mental health counselor and have worked in residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient settings for individuals with eating disorders and co-occuring conditions, such as trauma/PTSD, substance misuse, self-harm, and mood disorders.
I currently work with clients in person in Coconut Creek, FL, and offer telehealth services for clients located anywhere in the state of Florida.
Services Offered
Individual Therapy
I work with teens and adults (ages 12+) coping with eating disorders/body image distress, trauma/PTSD, depression and anxiety, codependency, self-harm behaviors and relationship conflict. I try my best to tailor sessions specifically to the client’s individual needs; however the work I do tends to involve more experiential practices, such as psychodrama, expressive arts, somatic work, and inner child/parts work. Sessions tend to begin with psychodynamic work, which involves us exploring your past together to work towards recognizing the patterns that you had to form to survive; so we can work towards forming new, more beneficial patterns. This may also include discussing coping skills and grounding techniques to build tools together for navigating that deeper work.
Group Therapy
Individual sessions can be so incredibly powerful, but there is nothing quite like being in a room of people who relate to your pain in their own way, and truly see you. I offer group therapy for those who are wanting to connect with others who share relatability, learn how to feel safe in being vulnerable, and receive and offer support to others who are also “doing the work”.
Family Sessions
Sometimes as we are doing our own work, we realize there is work to do with our loved ones. I offer family sessions for clients who are wanting to improve their communication and learn how to set boundaries with their parents, children, or siblings.
Eating Disorder Recovery Coaching
In addition to psychotherapy, I offer coaching to those in eating disorder recovery who are looking for support with the more practical aspects of recovery. This may include meal support, facing restaurants, navigating grocery shopping, support with changing sizes in clothes, and those other “every day” tasks that come with adjusting to recovery. This is ideal for someone who already has a therapist and dietitian, and is looking for extra support outside of sessions.
Types of therapy offered
Blending Experience and Insight
Sometimes feelings are intense and hard to explain, and words just might not do the trick in expressing them. Much of the work I do involves experiential methods, which are more action-driven methods that go further than having a conversation. This may include setting a scene, acting things out, connecting with the body, drawing/painting/working with clay, movement, writing, etc.
Though the experiential work is powerful and transformative, sometimes, talking things through is exactly what we need. We will work as a team to explore your past and understand what your past self needed. My hope is by doing this, you can begin to give that to yourself now.
Experiential Therapy
Gestalt methods involve being in the here and now and honoring what comes up. If you are coping with unresolved trauma and eating disorders, it may not feel safe or even possible to connect with your feelings, whether physical or emotional. Methods like somatic work, psychodrama, empty chair, and expressive arts can help you learn to find safety in noticing, acknowledging, and expressing what you are feeling or were unable to express in the past. Because eating disorders and co-occuring symptoms involve disconnection from the body, learning to reconnect with yourself and process what you have been carrying also eradicates the “need” for numbing behaviors, such as restriction, purging, compulsive exercise, self-harm, and other behaviors you may currently turn to for temporary relief.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Part of reconnecting with yourself is understanding yourself. Psychodynamic therapy involves methods of exploring your past, particularly experiences in your childhood and adolescence that led to the current beliefs and patterns you feel stuck in. The point is to understand how your not-so-helpful ways of coping formed, understanding how they helped you meet your needs to survive, and work towards forming new patterns that meet your needs in a more beneficial way. I incorporate psychodynamic therapy with a trauma-informed, attachment-based lens. Our work may involve exploring early recollections, processing repressed feelings, exploring your defense mechanisms, and exploring past and present relationship dynamics.
What I treat
Eating Disorders and Body Image Distress
Seeking therapy for an eating disorder does not require a specific weight or body size. Though someone struggling with an eating disorder may often be pre-occupied with body image and appearance, they are not defined by these factors. Far too many times, I have heard the association between eating disorders and someone needs to be a specific weight, body type, gender, age, or race. Eating disorder behaviors are more often that not how someone has learned to cope with their pain. This may be through restriction (limiting food intake, counting calories, avoiding specific types of food), purging (self-induced vomiting, consistent laxative use, compulsive, excessive exercise), or binging (consistently consuming an excessive amount of food in one sitting to the point of discomfort /shame). These behaviors are done by individuals of all weight ranges, body sizes, genders, sexual orientations, races, and ages. I work with individuals ages 12 and up who fall into any of those categories.
Complex Trauma
When someone hears the word “trauma”, what may come to mind is an extreme, catastrophic event. Though this would often be an example of trauma, it is not the only way trauma occurs. Complex trauma refers to traumatic situations that have happened over an extended period of time. For many people, this begins in early childhood. Sometimes this involves things that happened to you, like neglect, abuse, or abandonment. Sometimes it may be things that you needed to happen that didn’t, like being consoled as a child when you were hurt, taken to the doctor when you were sick, or having someone to listen to you when you desperately needed to say something. The work we will do together will involve exploring these significant points in your life that we will learn formed your core beliefs. The point is not to bash anyone from your past or sink into the darkness you felt, the point is to reconnect with that part of you who experienced these moments. The hope is that by reconnecting with that part of you, you can bring yourself fully into the here and now and put down what you may not even realize you are still carrying.
Co-occuring Conditions
Those with eating disorders and unresolved trauma often also cope with body dysmorphia, body image distress, codependency, depression, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, obsessions/compulsions, relationship distress/avoidance, and self-harm behaviors. These behaviors are often additional ways that someone numbs themself and copes with unresolved pain from their past. Toxic shame often leads to these behaviors, and these behaviors are often followed by shame. Because of this, you may be stuck in a cycle of repeating the behavior and isolating from support. I work with individuals who are noticing they are stuck in these patterns and wanting to learn how to form new, more beneficial ones.
Billing and Insurance
I am in network with
Cigna
Aetna
Carelon Behavioral Health
Quest Behavioral Health
Anthem EAP
Ascension (SmartHealth)
to confirm your insurance please visit my profile at:
For out of network fees:
Individual therapy sessions: $165 per hour
Family sessions: $175 per hour
Connect with me
I offer free 25 minute consultations. Please reach out if you’d like to schedule a call to chat and see if it feels like a good fit.
Amber Sutliff, LMHC 