About Patricia
Patricia Sumlin is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 25 years of experience. She helps people facing anxiety, stress, depression, trauma, and relationship challenges. Her style is direct, compassionate, and practical, aimed at helping clients build everyday coping skills.
Patricia uses a mix of approaches to match each person's needs. She draws from cognitive behavioral ideas to change unhelpful thinking. She also uses acceptance and commitment concepts to help people focus on values and small actions.
Background and approach
Attachment-based ways of working show up when relationship patterns and early bonds are central to the problem. Her background includes work in community clinics, residential programs, hospice, and programs focused on trauma and re-entry from prison. She has experience creating DBT groups, supporting people with chronic illness, and providing bereavement counseling.
That varied history informs a practical, straightforward approach in sessions. Patricia pays particular attention to neurodiversity and disability issues, including attention differences and learning styles. She also provides support around LGBT questions, grief, addictions, parenting stress, and intimacy-related concerns.
Sessions aim to help people gain skills to regulate emotions and handle daily life more effectively. She offers video, phone, live chat, and text-based messaging for remote sessions from Washington. New clients begin by completing a short matching questionnaire and scheduling according to the therapist's availability.
Approaches that translate to online care
Patricia often uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice and change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors. CBT tends to focus on concrete steps and exercises that translate well to digital formats and short homework tasks.She also brings acceptance and commitment therapy into sessions, which helps people clarify their values and take small actions that matter to them. ACT is useful for addressing anxiety, avoidance, and life transitions by teaching present-moment skills and committed action.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist and client review goals, history, and preferences and then try methods that fit. If something isn’t working, they adjust the plan so it better matches the client’s needs.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to provide flexibility. Video lets people work through interactive exercises and see nonverbal cues, while phone calls can be easier when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text messaging allow brief check-ins, ongoing coaching, or support between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, family, and daily routines.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Gottman Method
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- California, Washington
- Languages
- English
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