Rachel Pendergraft Beck

Rachel Pendergraft Beck, LMFT & Clinical Supervisor, Systemic Residency Program

She/her/hers – what are personal pronouns and why do they matter?

Clients I work with: Individuals and couples

Issues I work with: Communication, emotional intimacy, deepening connection in relationships, conflict repair, family of origin issues, adult attachment, trust, boundaries, codependency, anxiety, depression, neurodiversity (ADHD and ASD) challenges in relationships, life transitions, trauma, and young adult concerns.

 

My Background

In my therapeutic approach, I endeavor to nurture your emotional and relational health by acknowledging and making space for your individual experiences. Whatever your struggles might be, they are a product of your lived experience and all the ways you have learned to respond, adapt, and protect.

As human beings, we are hard-wired for connection. Connection with self and important loved ones is the foundation of a healthy and satisfying life. When our relationships feel close and responsive they feel like home, a secure place where we can access comfort, connection, resourcing, and joy. When relationships are feeling strained, it is normal to struggle.

I value the interconnectedness of the social, emotional, spiritual, and relational elements of your life. Imbalance, unresolved hurt, or fractures in one area can deeply impact others and leave you vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and disconnection.

I believe in the restorative and healing power of being truly known by self and others, through a process of deepening emotional intimacy, healing pain, and understanding needs. I specialize in working with clients to identify blocks in their relationship and supporting each person to feel seen, heard, and understood.  

As a therapist with over 13 years of clinical experience, I choose to lean on evidence-based models that offer a clear path for supporting clients to heal, process, and go deeper, whether that work takes place on the inside of you or between you and your partner.

Couples Therapy

When working with couples my client is your relationship and I am always working in service of your connection with one another. I specialize in cultivating a safe space where you can reconnect, resolve well-worn patterns, and repair old wounds. I’ll help you explore the patterns that take place between you and make sense of the thoughts and feelings that reside within.

This process shines a light on the needs of each of partner and how these needs may be driving behavior and maintaining patterns that create conflict or distance. Together, we can work through stuck places and help you create a new way of relating that promotes intimacy, security, openness, and accessibility.

It might be that you each have a different way of navigating emotions, conflict, disconnection, or stress. I take time to connect with each of your perspectives, working as a translator for the things you need, your different threat mitigation strategies, and the relational ‘misses’ that drive you apart. For most couples, one partner tends to pursue for connection, upping the ante when they can’t feel their important other, while the other partner tends to withdraw or shut down in an effort to reduce tension and diffuse conflict. Many couples find these different strategies create patterns of frustration, misunderstanding, lack of resolution, and protectiveness they can’t find a way out of.

I can help you to slow your old cycle down, get access to what you truly need, and support you to share your internal world with your precious person. Where this is new, risky, or foreign for either of you, I will guide you through the process, step by step, until you can build a new map for catching yourself and your partner in your moments of need.  

This map can prepare you for navigating the inevitable demands of life. My goal is to help each partner cultivate a felt sense of security and deeper attunement to one another’s emotional and relational needs that can be relied upon long after couples therapy has ended.

Individual Therapy

As we do this work together and you access your emotional and relational world, we can make space for you to connect with your best and whole self and the parts of you that may have needed to be put away, minimized, or even exiled. I want to welcome the fullness of your human experience – emotionally, mentally, physically, sexually, spiritually, and relationally. I believe that you have the power and right to feel free, live wholeheartedly, and walk in wellness, whatever this means for you.

I am skilled in working with individual clients who are looking to explore the ways that relationships have shaped them, both in the past and present. I can help you organize your early experiences and the messages they may have offered about your worth, lovableness, and boundaries. Where you may have developed any limiting beliefs about what you deserve, what you can ask for, and what you can receive I can help you heal, risk new interactions, and build your self-worth.

Where you are looking to explore relationships in the present, I can help you make sense of any patterns you find yourself in, the origins of these patterns, and ways to get more of what you need. Together, we can get a sense of how you navigate stress, conflict, and disconnection and the core needs for secure connection that underpins them.

We all long to be seen, cared for, held, and valued but haven’t always had the best roadmap for hoe to give and receive this. Change in the present is always possible and I am glad to help you lean into love with openness, clarity, self-worth, and vulnerability.

My Background

Whether guiding couples through the intricacies of their relationships or helping individuals navigate personal challenges, I use empathy, humor, intuition, and experience to build trust and alliance with my clients. I consider it a sacred privilege to come alongside my clients as they embark on their journeys of growth, hope, connection, and self-discovery.

I am a culturally humble, sex-positive, kink-aware, and LGBTQIA+ allied therapist. I welcome your humanity and look forward to learning more about you.

I received my MA in Marriage and Family Therapy from George Fox University in Portland, OR. Over the past 13 years, I have provided individual, couple, and family therapy services in a variety of clinical settings including in-home therapy, outpatient settings, and private practice. I have completed both the Externship and Core Skills level in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy and currently working towards Certification.

I am a Clinical Supervisor within our dedicated Systemic Residency Program and passionate about supporting therapists coming up in the field to grow their clinical identity, provide high-quality therapy, and lean into their Person of The Therapist work.