Lauren Ewart, MA, LPC, NCC
Therapist at Emerald Mental Health
Trauma-informed, relational therapy for adults who want to better understand themselves, reconnect with their bodies, and move beyond patterns that insight alone has not been able to change.
She/her | Adults 20+ | Virtual Therapy | Accepting New Clients
Meet Lauren Ewart
Maybe you understand your patterns but still feel stuck inside them. You can trace a reaction back to childhood, recognize why a relationship keeps affecting you, or explain exactly where your anxiety or self-doubt comes from—and yet knowing the “why” has not necessarily changed how you feel. You may feel disconnected from yourself, uncertain about your identity, emotionally exhausted, or like your emotions are bigger than you know what to do with.
I am naturally curious about what exists underneath those experiences. I want to understand not only what you are feeling, but the patterns, relationships, identities, beliefs, and experiences that helped shape the way you see yourself and the world. Sometimes that means exploring childhood or unconscious patterns. Sometimes it means noticing what is happening in your body in the present moment. Sometimes we need to slow everything down and simply make enough room for you to feel what is actually there.
My goal is to create a space where you feel genuinely seen, safe, and able to be curious about yourself without judgment. I am warm, grounding, reflective, and collaborative, but I will also thoughtfully challenge you when it feels useful. Therapy with me is less about handing you a worksheet and more about getting to the root of what keeps you stuck so that insight can begin turning into meaningful change.
Who I Work With and How I Can Help
I primarily work with adults who want to better understand themselves and the experiences that continue to shape their emotions, relationships, identity, and sense of self.
You may be:
Feeling disconnected from yourself or your body
Emotionally exhausted or overwhelmed by feelings that seem difficult to understand
Aware of unhealthy patterns but unsure how to change them
Struggling with self-esteem, self-worth, or trusting yourself
Questioning your identity, relationships, worldview, or where you fit
Noticing that childhood or adolescent experiences continue to affect you as an adult
Going through a major life transition or period of uncertainty
Feeling frustrated because you have gained insight in therapy before but still do not feel different
My primary areas of focus include complex trauma and PTSD, schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and psychosis, LGBTQIA+ identities, mood disorders, identity exploration, and life transitions.
Our work may focus on helping you understand emotional and relationship patterns, build self-compassion, tolerate difficult emotions, strengthen boundaries, reconnect with your body, develop greater self-trust, and safely process experiences that continue to influence your present.
The goal is not to “fix” you. It is to become more curious about what is happening, where it may have come from, and what different ways of responding might become possible.
My Approach to Therapy
My approach is relational and trauma-informed. More than anything, I believe the therapeutic relationship matters.
If you do not feel safe, understood, or connected to the person sitting across from you, it is very difficult to explore the deeper parts of yourself. That is why I spend time genuinely getting to know my clients as people—not just collecting symptoms, diagnoses, or treatment goals.
Every client comes into therapy with a different history, identity, nervous system, worldview, set of strengths, and reason for being there. Some people benefit from deeper, insight-oriented exploration. Others may need more structure or practical support before they feel ready to go deeper. I adapt our work based on what you need rather than expecting you to fit one specific therapy style.
I am curious, grounded, and reflective. I use humor, metaphors, and creative ways of exploring emotions and experiences. I also like to probe. If something seems important, I may invite you to look at it from another angle or notice something happening beneath the surface.
I might reflect that your breathing changed when you mentioned a particular person, or that your voice became smaller when we reached a certain subject.
Those moments can tell us something.
Rather than rushing past them, we get curious together.
Therapeutic Approaches I May Use
Relational & Person-Centered Therapy
The relationship we build is central to the work.
I want to know who you are beyond the reason you came to therapy—your interests, relationships, humor, values, worldview, fears, and the experiences that have shaped you. Therapy should feel collaborative rather than like something being done to you.
Somatic & Polyvagal-Informed Therapy
Our bodies often communicate things before we have words for them.
Somatic and nervous-system work can help us notice physical sensations, shifts in breathing, tension, shutdown, activation, or other signals that may give us information about what you are experiencing.
Instead of focusing only on what you think, we can begin exploring what your body is telling you too. Grounding and body awareness may also help when emotions begin to feel overwhelming.
Internal Family Systems-Informed Work
We all have different parts of ourselves that developed through our experiences.
One part may want connection while another pulls away. One may be highly critical while another feels vulnerable or afraid. Parts work gives us a way to explore these experiences with more curiosity and compassion rather than treating them as something that needs to be eliminated.
Psychoanalytic & Unconscious Exploration
Sometimes the patterns affecting us today began long before we recognized them.
We may explore early relationships, childhood experiences, unconscious beliefs, or repeated patterns to better understand how they continue influencing your emotions, relationships, identity, and nervous-system responses today.
I tend to connect more with these deeper, bottom-up and exploratory approaches than with therapy that relies heavily on worksheets or cognitive reframing alone.
Therapy for Psychosis & Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders
One area of my work that is especially meaningful to me is supporting people experiencing psychosis or schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
Through my work in community mental health, residential settings, and supported employment, I have seen how difficult it can be for people experiencing psychosis to find quality, consistent therapeutic care.
I have also seen the stigma attached to these diagnoses.
People experiencing psychosis are often reduced to assumptions about being dangerous, incapable, or “untreatable.”
I do not see people that way.
I am interested in your story, your experiences, your relationships, and how you make meaning of what is happening in your life. Therapy can provide a space to explore those experiences without reducing your entire identity to a diagnosis.
Depending on your needs, our work may involve building trust, emotional regulation, grounding, understanding patterns, strengthening relationships, exploring identity, and finding ways to navigate everyday life with more support and self-understanding.
Identity, Culture and Affirming Care
Mental health does not exist separately from identity, culture, family, community, or the systems we live within.
I believe therapy should recognize the effects of oppression, marginalization, and the environments people are navigating rather than automatically treating every difficult experience as evidence that something is wrong with the individual.
I am part of the LGBTQIA+ community myself, and affirming care is deeply important to me. Every person enters therapy with a unique background and worldview. I want our work to make room for that rather than asking you to separate parts of your identity from your mental health.
I also have lived experience with my own mental health struggles, including depression, OCD, and trauma. Therapy helped me gain insight into myself, and being able to offer that kind of space to someone else is part of what makes this work meaningful to me.
What Therapy With Me Feels Like
I would describe myself as warm, grounding, curious, and reflective.
I will listen closely, but I am not a therapist who only sits quietly and nods. I ask thoughtful questions. I notice patterns. I reflect things back. I may gently challenge you or use a metaphor that helps us look at something differently.
I also use humor. Therapy deals with difficult things, but the relationship itself can still feel human.
There is no pressure to share everything immediately. If something feels overwhelming, we slow down. We may talk about lighter things for a while, focus on grounding, or simply spend more time getting to know each other.
Safety comes before depth.
When the foundation is there, we can begin exploring what exists underneath the patterns that brought you to therapy in the first place.
My Background and Experience
Much of my professional experience has been in community mental health, including residential treatment and supported employment and vocational settings.
Those experiences introduced me to clients navigating complex and often highly stigmatized mental health concerns, including psychosis and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. They also reinforced my belief that people need ongoing, quality care that recognizes their humanity—not simply their diagnosis.
I was drawn to this profession in part because of my own experiences with mental health and therapy. Learning more about myself through therapy was deeply meaningful, and it is rewarding to now create that opportunity for others.
Outside of traditional therapy approaches, spirituality is also personally meaningful to me. I love tarot and have previously facilitated a tarot and Internal Family Systems therapy group using tarot as a tool for reflection and exploration. I also recharge with time along the lakeshore, good company, reality TV, and my two cats, Scout and Binx.
Education, Licensure & Professional Memberships
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology — McDaniel College, Westminster, Maryland
Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling — The Chicago School, Chicago
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)
National Certified Counselor (NCC) — National Board for Certified Counselors
Member — American Counseling Association
Member — National Board for Certified Counselors
Language: English
Therapy With Lauren
I currently provide virtual therapy for adults ages 20 and older and am accepting new clients.
Our first few sessions are about getting to know you, understanding what brings you to therapy, and beginning to identify what you want from our work together.
There is no expectation that you tell me everything at once.
We will move at a pace that allows trust to develop, and we can adjust our approach as we learn more about what helps you feel safe, understood, and supported.
[Schedule a Consultation With Lauren]
A Personal Note From Lauren
If you have tried therapy before and walked away with more insight but not much actual change, my approach may feel different.
Understanding why you do something is an important first step—but knowing the “why” does not always help you move forward.
Together, we can get curious about what continues to keep you stuck, what your mind and body may be communicating, and where there may be space for something new.
You do not need to have it all figured out before we begin.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can I expect from my first session?
Our first session is a relaxed conversation. We will talk about what is bringing you to therapy, your current concerns, and what you might like to work toward. There is no pressure to share your entire history at once.
What if I feel nervous or uncomfortable in therapy?
That is completely okay. We can slow down. We may focus on lighter topics, spend time getting to know each other, or use grounding skills if you are feeling overwhelmed. Building trust is part of therapy, not something you need to arrive with.
What if I know why I feel this way but still cannot change it?
That is actually something I work with often. Insight is important, but intellectual understanding does not always reach the deeper emotional, relational, or nervous-system patterns underneath what is happening. We can explore those layers together.
Do you work with people experiencing psychosis or schizophrenia?
Yes. This is an area I care deeply about. I believe people experiencing psychosis deserve thoughtful, ongoing therapeutic care that sees the whole person rather than reducing them to symptoms or stigma.
Do you incorporate spirituality into therapy?
Only if it is meaningful to you. I am personally interested in spirituality and tarot and have experience using tarot as a tool for self-reflection in therapy. It is never something you need to participate in for us to work well together.
Ready to See Whether We’re a Good Fit?
You do not need to know exactly what you want to say or where therapy will lead before you reach out.
We can start with what is happening now, get curious together, and take it from there.
[Schedule a Consultation With Lauren]