Meet Em
Em Stuart, LMFT (CA)
Lion | Sea Goat (Unicorn) | Scorpio (Eagle)
they/them
I’m a queer, white psychotherapist practicing in California (the Bay Area). The foundation of my practice sits on a meditation cushion where, over the span of 10 years, I have learned to more deeply rest in my Queer, trans, and female-conditioned body. But my starting home comes from the swamps outside of New Orleans, where hurricanes are dreaded seasonal visitors, playmates and readily drank alongside some blues & jazz.
When sitting with individuals or couples, I track my shifting body sensations to help clients digest the often unconscious or unprocessed stories that they hold in their bodies. I offer reflections in the form of images, metaphors, naming feelings, and my curiosities about certain relationships or generational patterns that might inform specific mood states. This somatic process has naturally led me into the realm of chronic pains and other physical ailments that people hold every day, often without known causes or concrete medical explanations. Clients have described sessions with me as “feeling like my body got a massage”, “calming”, and “noticing a growing self-trust.”
I reflect a lot about the subtle ways that our daily interactions and behaviors uphold systems of harm, and unhelpful forms of survival, or create openings for the playful co-creation of new systems of healing. I’m looking forward to joining a community of embodied therapists that are reenvisioning the conditions necessary for a sincere healing space. Therapists that are growing the capacity for the re-emergence of all aspects of themselves and the client. Collective liberation is the dream, and I see my energetic body circulating like the rainbands of a hurricane, offering curiosity (the starting ingredient that grows compassion) to all pockets of the matrix we find ourselves stuck in, starting with you and me.