Hello!

I’m Chelsea Kellogg (she/her/hers). I spend my free time critiquing films with my partner, laughing at shows on Dropout, walking/urban hiking, learning to play instruments, cooking, doing yoga, and nerding out over my favorite interest, psychology. For those who find personality tests fun, I am an INFP and Enneagram 4 wing 5. I am white with European ancestors, female, fat, neurodiverse, disabled and living with autoimmune disorders, middle class, cis-gender, bi/pansexual, demisexual, and born and raised as a citizen in the United States. As such, I hold identities that are both privileged and marginalized.

I believe that we all have identities, and our identities coexist with our bodies. These identities might carry pain, shame, grief, marginalization, historical/ancestral trauma, and systemic oppression. Our identities also carry tremendous power, pride, purpose, love, history, strength, beauty and so much more. I am aware that my privileged identities offer me unearned advantage in many ways. This awareness is an ongoing process of constant unlearning, listening, and self-reflection, to which I am deeply committed.

Before becoming a therapist I completed a Bachelor’s Degree in English Lit and Creative Writing from UW Madison. My planned path to work in the publishing industry and write short stories was interrupted by the severity of PTSD I was suffering from in my early-mid 20s. While I was recovering from this, I worked part-time as a nanny and babysitter.

I came to this work as a therapist via my own struggle and recovery from complex trauma as a domestic and sexual violence survivor. The trauma I experienced was profound and life altering. It brought me to examine and digest how my domestic violence experience was connected to my childhood and family of origin traumas. I experienced healing as a spiritual-like initiation into deeper levels of consciousness, self development, self actualization, and revolutionary praxis. I know what it is like to work my way out of helplessness and deep emotional pain, to strength, agency, and empowerment. I know how the healing process can be simultaneously taxing and rewarding. I also know what it is like to live with disabilities that are a result of exposure to extreme traumatic stress. I choose to share these intimate details about my origin story as a therapist because my journey is nothing to be ashamed of, and neither is yours.

There are many times in our life’s journey when we need to lean on another for support. When I think about how to describe my style as a therapist, an image of someone holding a lantern as they walk along a dark road comes to my mind. Like a lantern, I will be a helper to you on your journey, there to illuminate a safer passage so that your unique strengths become more visible and your individual challenges become more manageable.

This means I will motivate and challenge you with kindness, compassion, and fortitude when confronting the hard stuff. I aim to be direct, curious, relatable, imperfectly human, down to earth, and to model ways of being that are different than those preferred by colonialism, capitalism, healthism, white supremacy culture, and corporate America.

My approach involves several evidence-based therapeutic modalities that weave together mindfulness, relationship, emotion, memory, creativity, reflection, the present moment, the mind, and the body. I place a strong emphasis on forming a therapeutic relationship that allows us to be authentic, feel connected, work through conflict (yes, conflict between us does not have to mark the end of our relationship!) and reach real transformation.

As a neurodiverse individual, psychology is my special interest. I take several trainings per year as I am always excited about expanding my knowledge and skills. My main two approaches to therapy are Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theory. However, I am trained in and draw from a wide variety of theories and models.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is used in individual, couples, and family therapy. EFT is based in attachment theory and believes that emotion (aka affect) is a powerful agent of both change and connection. Problems tend to happen when the dominant emotions that underlie experience are not fully conscious or felt. Change occurs when emotions are interacted with and understood differently. EFT places a strong emphasis on the therapeutic relationship and the science of trust and emotional safety.

Psychodynamic therapy is insight and affect based and involves analyzing the ways that your formative experiences shaped your sense of self, your patterns, your repetitions, and the struggles you deal with in your present day life. It involves examining unconscious processes and making them more conscious. This is colloquially known as “shadow work.” I am not professionally trained in dream analysis, but welcome discussion and interpretation about dreams in therapy. Psychodynamic therapy is also known as depth therapy and originates in the work of Carl Jung.

Furthermore, I incorporate somatic therapy techniques, which involves mindfully tuning into your physical experiences to gain deeper insight, and to ground and regulate. I am also trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is about mindfully aligning our actions with our values and strengthening our self compassion. Lastly, I sprinkle in various skills from behavioral approaches like CBT, DBT, and non-violent communication. I find behavioral models for therapy to be deeply limited, and potentially even harmful/oppressive depending on the circumstances. Even non-violent communication has its pitfalls. So my use of these models is done thoughtfully, and not formulaically.

As a neurodiverse person, I am more on the intellectual side and work well with other intellectually oriented people. While intellectualizing can be a defense mechanism, a trauma response, and dissociative from the body and the emotions, it can also be a positive part of personality and identity. Intellectualism to me means inquisitive and insightful deep thinking. It can be a pathway to social connection, and building relational safety and trust. If you want to simultaneously embrace your intellectualism as a healthy part of yourself, and address the ways it isn’t serving you, we can absolutely do that in our work together.

Here is a complete list of therapy models and theories I draw from in my work:

• Systems theories including feminist, family systems, queer theory, and critical race theory.

• Trauma-informed care and the neuroscience of trauma.

• Emotionally Focused Therapy.

• Gottman Method, Level 1 & 2 trained.

• ND Compass: a model of couples therapy for neurodiverse couples that is social justice oriented.

• Currently pursuing the “Neurodivergence Competency Training – Intermediate Level” Microcredential.

• Attachment Theory & Interpersonal Neurobiology.

• Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Therapy/Theory.

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

• Narrative Therapy and Mentalization Based Narrative Exposure Therapy (MBNET.)

• Body Trust (I am not a certified Body Trust provider.)

• Somatic and Experiential Therapies.

• Humanism.

• Motivational Interviewing.

• Non-violent communication.

• Relational Life Therapy.

• CBT and DBT.