Charity Laughlin, MA, LMFT

• Charity Laughlin CV

I graduated with a Masters in Couples and Family Therapy (Seattle University) in 2019, became fully licensed as a LMFT in the state of Washington in 2021, and obtained my sex therapist certification from AASECT in 2022. Prior to graduation, I completed my clinical internship at Seattle Counseling Service, a community mental health agency with a specific mission to serve the LGBTQIA++ community. I currently work as a clinician, clinical supervisor, and Director of Couples and Relational Therapy at Pacific Behavioral Healthcare, a private group practice in Bellevue, WA that specializes in providing services for intimate partnerships at the intersection of relational and sexual concerns. I continue to serve the couple and family therapy (CFT) profession in Washington by volunteering with the Washington Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (WAMFT); various roles have included board member at-large, Legislative Committee Chair, and various committee memberships. I am passionate about advocacy for the sustainability of the CFT profession at the policy level and continue to serve on WAMFT’s Legislative Committee.

As a Washington State approved supervisor and AAMFT Approved Supervisor Candidate, my overall goal in supervision is to support you in becoming the best therapist version of you within your preferred therapy approach and theory. My supervision approach tends toward collaborative, relational, and strengths based with particular emphasis on person of the therapist development within your comfort zone. I endeavor to attune to diverse identities and social locations within the client-therapy system and how these impact the way we relate to each other.

In my clinical work, I specialize in working with distressed partnerships and intimate relationships at the intersection of relationships and sexuality, often including interpersonal trauma occurring between intimate partners. I am influenced by Bowen Family Systems Theory, the early experiential family therapists (Whitaker & Satir), Certified Sex Therapist credentialing, Emotionally-Focused Therapy, Gottman’s relationship research, and Internal Family Systems Therapy. My clinical work integrates attachment theory, differentiation theory, system thinking, and interpersonal neurobiology, and I’ve found Bader and Pearson’ Developmental Model of Couples Therapy to be particularly robust as a clinical resource for this integration. I've also found Juliane Taylor Shore, LMFT's application of interpersonal neurobiology to relational clinical work to be particularly effective and well-endorsed by clients, and I’ve discovered Dr. Alexandra Solomon’s work as a fresh, approachable resource for viewing relationships/systems with what Boszormenyi-Nagy calls multidirectional partiality. I view human beings as naturally moving toward wholeness and integration, and I think of life/relationship challenges as not so much a problem to solve but a dialectic to balance. Whitaker’s (1989) words inspire me: “The process of learning how to love and how to become part of a we without destroying yourself is a long-term project. It begins with learning how to love yourself and then learning how to love someone like you, and moves on to the courage to love someone different from you, to learning how to tolerate the vulnerability and struggle over the problem of how to be all you are, which must include a significant other” (p. 98).