Caroline Sanchez, M.Ed., LPC, RPT, TBRI Practitioner.

About Caroline (she/her):

Caroline is an Austin native who is happy to be working in the city she grew up in.  Caroline is mother to three elementary aged kids who she is raising with her partner in a bicultural family.  Caroline’s work with children started in the educational world where she quickly learned her passion was for children’s emotional wellbeing rather than academic achievement.  She transitioned from teacher to counselor, where she spent 6 years advocating for children’s mental health in the public school setting.  She is excited to be able to fully invest herself in meaningful and intentional work with children, adolescents, and adults in the private practice setting.  When Caroline is not at the office, she is coaching her kids’ soccer teams, loving on her favorite pup Penny  Sparkles, doing CG workouts, and trying to keep her plants alive.

Beliefs about our work together in therapy:

When we ask kids to ‘tell us’ about a problem, we expect them to come into the adult world and communicate on our level.  Instead, play therapy meets the child where they are and gives them toys to use as their words.  Through play, children can work through difficult issues and emotions, building abilities to regulate challenging emotions and increase their sense of agency in their ability to positively impact their world.  For older children and adolescents, therapeutic play, expressive art activities, and projective techniques like sand tray therapy help balance the creativity of the right brain with the logical processing of the left brain.  Through this integration, older children and adolescents gain a greater understanding of themselves, building the self-esteem and self-compassion that can be so difficult to maintain during this period of life.  

Caroline also uses her extensive experience with children to inform her work with adults.  As adults, we often carry the wounds and negative beliefs created in childhood with us into adulthood.  Sometimes these become especially triggered as adults enter into parenthood.  Work with adults often incorporates healing the inner child to allow for more adaptive beliefs and skills to grow.  Caroline uses a person-centered approach with the driving belief that the client is the expert on their own life and already possesses all the tools necessary to support the growth or change they seek.  Caroline feels strongly about using mindfulness to bring awareness to our bodies and feelings,  in order to increase understanding of ourselves and what these feelings are trying to tell us.  Through expanded self-awareness, we can begin to notice our patterns, embrace our actions with understanding and compassion, and strengthen our sense of agency in how we might respond in different ways that meet our needs more adaptively. 

Currently, Caroline is working to complete EMDR training (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) in order to incorporate the processing of trauma into her therapeutic work.  When someone experiences a trauma or adverse life experience, the sights, sounds, and feelings can become locked in that person’s brain.  Oftentimes during that traumatic experience, the person creates a negative belief about themselves.  These feelings and negative beliefs may get triggered whenever reminders come up.  EMDR allows for the reprocessing of that experience in order to understand it in a different way, decrease the intensity of the feelings it brings up, and create a new more adaptive belief around it.

Therapeutic modalities and experience:

• Registered Play Therapist (RPT) - Play therapy with children

• EMDR work with all ages healing from trauma and adverse life experiences

• Activity therapy and expressive arts with adolescents

• Work with children, adolescents, parents, and adults to repair attachment ruptures

• Person-Centered Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Counseling, and CBT interventions with adults to support in managing anxiety/depression, navigating life transitions, and exploring attachment patterns

• Parent Coaching/Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator - work with parents to provide psychoeducation around effective parent-child communication and how to address behavioral challenges

• Help children and adolescents learn to cope with school-based stressors

• Offer support to teachers in addressing challenging behaviors at school

• Work with families to navigate school challenges - with 6 years of experience working as a school counselor; Caroline is familiar with the 504, GT, and Special Education systems and what each program offers

• Work with children and adolescents to express anger in a healthy, safe way

• Address challenges with focus and attention

• Work through difficult life transitions such as divorce, loss, or general stress

• Working with children who have witnessed or been victim to violence, or experienced other trauma

• Working with multiples and parents of multiples.

*All services provided have the option of being either in-person or Telehealth*

For scheduling please click the button below or you can reach Caroline directly at caroline@attunedaustin.com

Caroline’s client hours are 10am - 3pm.

Caroline currently has a waiting list for potential new clients.