The long way here
Hi, I'm Lara. I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor offering trauma-focused, body-based and equine-assisted psychotherapy in Dripping Springs and Wimberley, and by telehealth across Texas.
I was born and raised in Texas, and this is my third time coming home, after Seattle, Tampa, Nashville and almost a decade in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I never planned to be a therapist. I went into tech for the money, and over 25 years I found meaningful corners of it: a nonprofit improving access to textbooks for blind and low-vision students, and a culture team trying to make a software startup more humane. I also volunteered as a mentor with Kids Hope. But I grew disillusioned with how often corporate life chose profit over people, all while carrying my own attachment and trauma wounds, even as I kept seeking help.
I'm always working on myself, almost to a fault. It's also why I trust this work: I've spent a long time on the other side of the room.
Becoming a therapist
After decades of talk-based therapy as a client, intensive narrative work with Dr. Dan Allender showed me there was another way in. I moved to Seattle for my MA in Counseling Psychology at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, a program that asks students to do their own work first, so that our own histories, reactions and blind spots don't end up in the room with our clients.
I worked with children and families in crisis at the YMCA, then came back to central Texas for family and a dream: equine-assisted psychotherapy. I began as an intern in 2017, the same year I started working with Cappy (now Phoenix), was licensed in 2021, and left tech for good in 2022.
Why the herd lives here
For years I worked with other people's horses on other people's land. Some lived mostly in stalls, which can echo confinement for clients whose histories include feeling trapped. So when we moved to Wimberley in 2021, I wanted the herd here, where their whole lives can be tended: together, with hay and water around the clock, room to move, and encouragement to stay curious. Settled horses make for safer, more honest work.
How I work
For a long time I treated my body as something to use up rather than care for. It took me years to learn it's where a lot of our history lives.
Insight alone isn't always enough, so I kept looking for ways to reach what lives below conscious thought: EMDR, somatic therapy, expressive arts, dreamwork and work with horses. Instead of only talking about change, you get to have a different experience in the moment, which is how old patterns actually begin to shift.
I'm LGBTQ+ affirming and neurodiversity-affirming. People of every faith, and of none, are welcome here, and I bring no agenda about what you believe.
Training & credentials
Licensure & education: Licensed Professional Counselor (Texas) · MA in Counseling Psychology, The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology
Equine-specific: Natural Lifemanship (full training sequence plus additional trainings; completing consultation toward certification) · Equine-Connected EMDR (EC-EMDR) · Equusoma (both levels plus consultation) · Tellington TTouch and the Masterson Method · horsemanship mentoring · offering equine-assisted psychotherapy since 2017
Somatic & trauma: Somatic Experiencing (full professional training; completing consultation toward SEP) · EMDR (basic plus multiple advanced trainings) · Trauma-Focused CBT · expressive arts, sandtray and dreamwork
Attachment & relational: year-long interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) clinical immersion with Bonnie Badenoch · STAIR Method Level 2 with Jules Taylor Shore · attachment training with Diane Poole Heller and with Dr. Ann Kelly and Sue Marriott (Therapist Uncensored) · contemporary relational, psychoanalytic and systems training · IFS-informed parts work · narrative work (Allender Center)
Groups: process group training with Katharine Barnhill · working toward the Certified Group Psychotherapist (CGP) credential
Meaning & mindfulness: existential framework · MBSR
Let's talk
May I be an isle for those who yearn for land,
A lamp for those who long for light.
— Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (trans. Padmakara Translation Group)
Curious whether we're a good fit? The first step is a free 20-minute consult. No pressure, and no horse experience required.