Maria Rue Counseling

I believe that our most painful times are also often the times when we experience profound growth, and develop into who we are meant to be. I work with adults who are struggling with life transitions and trauma, including but not limited to parenthood, divorce, PTSD, relational struggles, and religious abuse and deconstruction issues. I believe that attachment and trauma are at the core of many of our issues and anxieties. Our past traumas have a way of working themselves into our present and disrupting our lives and our joy. Often, these disruptions are our body’s way of asking us to work through the broken stories of our past so that we can move forward and truly enjoy life. In our work together, we will attend to relational issues past and present, with a keen eye to attachment and to patterns that seem to be repeating in your life. Without judgement, we will work to make meaning out of your experiences. We will also attend to and honor your trauma. As we engage the ghosts of the past in a curious and empathic manner, my hope is to integrate them into your life story as a whole, which can enable you to enjoy your present moment more fully. I have lived in Washington my entire life, and I enjoy our ample cloudy and rainy days. I earned my BA from the University of Washington, where I studied history and comparative religion. I hold a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. I have always been interested in the intersections of spirituality and mental health, and I work from an agnostic, post religious, yet spiritually curious stance, with an operational belief that spirituality (as opposed to religion) is subjective and deeply individualized. For me, spirituality means integration- truly knowing ourselves and living in an integrated, peaceful way with ourselves. I see therapy itself as a spiritual practice, which provides patients the space to explore their own minds and hearts, in the pursuit of the biggest existential questions we all face, about what makes life meaningful and good.