Elayne Smith
Elayne Smith, LMFT & Founder of CCHC
She/her/hers – what are personal pronouns and why do they matter?
Clients I work with: All adult individuals. I also provide specialized therapy for self-actualizers, high-functioners, overachievers, pursuers, burnout, leaders, entrepreneurs, therapists, clinical directors and supervisors, mental health practice owners, healers, medical providers, first responders, teachers, the military, and those committed to purposeful growth.
Issues I work with: Roots and Origins: Family of origin issues, childhood or attachment experiences, relational patterns, family dynamics, strategies of survival, adaptation, and protection, shadow drivers, unmet needs, limiting beliefs, identity formation, self-worth, trauma, and intergenerational healing and cycle breaking.
Relationships: Adult love relationships, dating, commitment, emotional intimacy, pursue/withdraw cycles, boundaries, adult attachment styles, identifying and communicating emotional and relational needs, trust, and adult family relationships.
Patterns of Being: High functioning/performing, overachieving, overfunctioning, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, people pleasing, pursuing, meeting needs to get needs met, limiting beliefs about self and relationships, and hustling for self-worth.
Life Transitions: Life decisions and transitions, burnout, grief, loss and endings, relationship changes, spiritual crisis, career shifts, change in identity, periods of high or complex demand, and shifts in motivation, resources, direction, and/or purpose.
Cultivating Potential: Post-traumatic growth, reconnecting with your whole, authentic, and original self, solidifying identity and self-worth, intentional life design, transforming shadow drivers, healthy resilience, connecting with the body, nurturing instincts and intuition, fulfilling potential, purposeful growth, and differentiation of self (balance between connection and separateness, belonging and individuality).
About Me
What you can expect from our work
Am I a good fit for your needs and goals?
I offer highly specialized therapy services focused on targeted healing, lasting change, purposeful growth, and the fulfillment of potential. I am trained to go deep, identifying the origins of your struggles, and then serving as a directive guide through the process of organization, healing and processing, transformation, and integration.
I know that truly meaningful therapy is fundamentally a human-to-human encounter so you will find I show up in our work as your greatest ally, with the deepest of respect for your story, and a unwavering belief in your ability to grow and move through hard things. You don’t have to do this alone and I will be honored to serve as your skilled companion.
I am a systemic and holistic therapist which means I understand the deep interconnection between your experiences of relationships (both past and present) and your current struggles. It means I am interested in every aspect of how you came to be your current ‘self’ – relationally, mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually, financially, culturally, and spiritually.
I serve my clients by demystifying the process of change. It is my experience that whatever your current challenge you will find the roots of it in your earlier relationship experiences. If you aren’t sure about whether this is true for you, please visit this page where I explain more about the power and influence of relationships on the development of personhood.
The goal of going deep in this way is to identify the origins of your struggles and engage in intentional and focused work. I aim to provide directive, engaging, goal-oriented, and transformative support to those who want to design a life that is authentically theirs, well-resourced, and aligned with their whole self.
Our work will typically shine a light on your strengths, resilience, skills, resourcefulness, purpose, potential, and brilliance so that you can further harness their power. It will also likely unearth the corresponding wounds, vulnerabilities, adaptations, protections, patterns, conflicts, compromises, dilemmas, limiting beliefs, stuck points, unmet needs, and shadow motivators that underpin your pain.
It is here that we do the deep work so that you can unburden yourself of anything that no longer serves you. Our work moves at your pace, making sure to integrate, collaborate, and resource as we go. I want to reassure you that you won’t lose your ‘edge’, energy, or drive if you risk following the threads downwards to the source but rather find more internal clarity, satisfaction, and resources from which to live your best life.
Many of my clients end up doing layers of work over time. You may come into therapy to address a specific issue and then find that the work organically expands as you explore the ways that your growth makes space for new, exciting, and also unfamiliar ways of being. I specialize in supporting clients to explore, expand, and integrate all the new possibilities available to them for living, loving, and leading.
Approach
My Treatment Approach
What underpins my work
I believe that transformative therapy is a blend of three things: 1) the degree of human and authentic connection between therapist and client; 2) the skill and training of the therapist and their ability to utilize models that are relevant and applicable to the needs of the client; and 3) the degree to which the therapist has been willing to grapple with their own human struggles and the extent to which they are willing to do the very work they are asking of their clients.
I trust that the primary gift I offer to my clients is my ongoing and very thoughtful commitment to all three areas. I have invested heavily in training, supervision, and self-of-the-therapist consultation across my 20+ years of clinical practice, paying close attention to what worked for my clients, as well as what worked for me as a client. I was always aware that my calling to become a therapist was as much about wanting to be of service to my fellow humans as it was about my longing to heal and make sense of my own lived experiences. I have been quite determined to organize and heal the experiences of my childhood so that I might come out the other side as whole, integrated, powerful, and free in a world of my choosing.
As a psychotherapy practice owner who has always been deeply invested in providing holistic support and meaningful opportunities for growth with the therapists I have been lucky enough to work with, I have nurtured a specialty in the process of ‘becoming a therapist’. Over the last ten years I have developed a model ‘The Parallel Process’ (TM pending) designed to offer the optimal organizational conditions for therapist growth, a clear map for reaching potential, and a process for attending to self-of-the-therapist work – all in service of clients.
This model underpins our work at The Center for Connection, Healing and Change, informs my clinical work with clients who are therapists (where relevant and requested by the client), and is offered on a training and consultation basis to external therapists, clinical directors and supervisors, professors and trainers, and leader in the mental health field.
I lean on well-researched, evidence-based models that offer a clear map for the process of creating lasting change. My theoretical orientations are grounded in family systems, attachment, intergenerational patterns, trauma, and somatic psychotherapy models.
Whether you are looking for a new therapist to support you in your next phase of growth, have hit a plateau in your current process and want a therapist who can help you go deeper, or are feeling burnout after a lifetime of striving for the next thing, I can help.
I am originally from England and moved here to build a life with my (now retired) military husband over 16 years ago. We have three special children who continue to inspire my commitment to healing, authenticity, attunement, and cycle-breaking.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Virginia and earned my master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Southern Mississippi. Their MFT training program profoundly changed my life and I will be forever grateful to the academic team that invested so heavily in my professional and personal growth as a therapist coming up in the field.