Sunny Strasburg, LMFT

As a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in Salt Lake City, Utah, and also licensed in Maryland, Sunny is a certified as a trauma specialist, certified in EMDR (Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing) for treating single episode and complex PTSD. Additional training includes Internal Family Systems, Gottman Couples Method, Attachment Theory, Ego State work and Jungian Depth Psychology.

Before establishing her private practice, she was a family, group and individual therapist at an in-patient adult drug and alcohol treatment facility. This site provided in-depth training on how to build rapport, help clients internalize motivation, and the opportunity to process a myriad of different co-morbidities that tend to occur with addiction, most commonly PTSD.

Mrs Strasburg has served a broad spectrum of clientele, working with licensed clinicians as a consultant, LGBTQIA+ individuals and couples, diverse age groups and developmental stages, as well as racially and culturally diverse individuals. Sunny has worked and volunteered in sites serving populations including autism, hospice, refugee populations homeless, veterans, and abuse. I specialize in treating complex and single episode PTSD, DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), conflicted relationship communication, attachment trauma, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, addiction, OCD, anxiety, depression, grief, awakening a sense of purpose, gender dysphoria, and life and developmental change.

Mrs Strasburg has been trained in psychological assessment and diagnosis, and frequently uses several methods of assessing clients for relationship conflict, attachment styles, dissociative disorders and PTSD. Her goal in therapy is to work collaboratively with clients, and to trust the natural unfolding of the psyche. The psyche has a natural inclination to move toward wholeness and health once the proper container is provided. That container is formed by a strong therapeutic alliance, and a safe psychological space to explore the shadowlands of one’s psyche. As she gained more experience, Sunny came to realize realize she is not the “expert” in the therapeutic relationship, providing the right answers to misguided clients. Rather, the human psyche is wonderfully wise, and as long as she remains curious, open and supportive, subjective distress is soothed and clients move toward mental health.

In addition to being a psychotherapist, Mrs Strasburg is also a visual artist and incorporate art and psychology into many of her endeavors. Sunny is a MAPS supporter, and her paintings have been on the cover of the annual bulletin and displayed at MAPS fundraiser events. In 2009, she had an art exhibition at COSM, Alex Grey’s gallery in New York City. She has illustrated the cover and art for several books, and often have art exhibitions in California, Denver and Salt Lake City. Several years ago, Sunny and her family lived in Costa Rica and she had direct experiences under shamanic and indigenous leaders.

Mrs Strasburg has had a longtime vision of potentiating therapy offered to clients with PTSD by creating a treatment plan which incorporates psychedelic medicines, Internal Family Systems, EMDR, hypnosis and dream analysis. IFS and EMDR are effective tools for processing trauma, but the ability to support that experience with psychedelic medicine alleviates suffering for many more clients in significantly less time. These medicines often evoke what she calls the “Observer” part of the psyche. This wise part has the distance to feel a deep sense of empathy toward the traumatized parts of the psyche.  Practitioners of psychedelic assisted therapy require the best training in how to properly and legally support clients using these medicines, and to follow empirically-based protocols which have been proven safe and effective. This is particularly essential for fragile, traumatized clients.

Sunny is a lover of nature and spends time hiking, climbing Via Ferrati, trail running and mountain biking in the gorgeous Wasatch Mountains, Costa Rica, Europe, and the deserts in Southern Utah. She enjoys fitness, research in psychology, philosophy and the philosophical implications of nascent areas of research such as the juxtaposition of psychedelics and artificial intelligence.