About me
Hello!I’m so glad you are here. I am a Licensed Couples and Family Therapist (LMFT) and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, and I work with couples and intimate partnerships navigating relationship challenges, sexual concerns, and the emotional impact of anxiety, depression, trauma, and loss. I offer couples and relationship therapy in the Seattle area through a Bellevue-based group practice, with in-person sessions in Bellevue and telehealth for clients located anywhere in Washington.
I identify as a growth-oriented therapist, which means that I balance a compassionate, validating stance with active support as you experiment with new ways of relating and being that move you toward the life, love, and experience you want.
My work with relationships seeks to support partners in becoming strong teammates—open to each other’s influence while staying true to what feels essential to themselves. I integrate the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy, sex therapy, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, interpersonal neurobiology, and Gottman’s relationship research. I often invite my clients to practice new approaches to old problems in session.
I welcome diversity in my therapy practice and am committed to providing a supportive, affirming therapeutic environment for the multiple aspects of yourself you bring to therapy, including those identities in which you may have felt shamed, oppressed, or invisible. I affirm all sexual orientations, gender identities, consensual relationship configurations, cultures, and faith traditions.
I think we are all moving naturally toward wholeness and integration.
I trust your nervous system to sense the right rhythm of growth for you, while also holding the paradox that past experiences of overwhelm and aloneness can influence that sensing.
I believe there is sacred power in the breath, in the pause between stimulus and response, and in our connections to ourselves and others.
I tend to think of life not as a problem to solve, but as an array of dialectics (opposites) to balance. Relationships often bring these tensions into sharp relief.
My therapeutic approach is rooted in systems theory, which means that I look at your story within the context of other stories that are happening around you.
In couples therapy, I help each partner clarify “what belongs to me and what belongs to you” in the challenges being faced and to focus on what is in each person’s locus of control.
I believe that both attachment security (including secure attachment to self) and solid differentiation of self/other are essential for deeply authentic, intimate relationships.
I don’t see conflict as the primary threat to relationships. More often, it is the absence of repair and reconnection after rupture. Supporting couples in building a reliable “trust floor” is a central part of my work.
Guiding Lights
A trust floor is the felt assurance that a relationship has the resilience to hold misattunements, differences, and conflict, allowing partners to work through them together and emerge stronger on the other side.
Why the Starfish?
The starfish appears across many coastal cultures as a symbol of renewal and the capacity to evolve. Here, it reflects my orientation as a growth-oriented therapist: supporting my courageous clients to name the life and relational experience they desire and connect with the agency, courage, and capacity to move toward this.
Loss—often a catalyst for reinvention—invites us to clarify what is essential, identify self-led shifts that bring us closer to the experience we want, and connect with others from a place of deeper intimacy with who we are and who we are becoming: our identity, values, and desires.
Publications & Credentials
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Francis Laughlin, C. (2024). Intimate Relationship Deescalation for Teletherapy: The Structured Pause. In The Therapist’s Notebook for Systemic Teletherapy (pp. 160-164). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003289920-31
Francis Laughlin, C., & Rusca, K. A. (2019). Strengthening Vicarious Resilience in Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Narrative Approach to Couples Therapy. The Family Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/1066480719894938
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Master of Arts in Couples and Family Therapy (MA)
Washington State Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT)
AASECT Certified Sex Therapist (CST)
The Developmental Model of Couples Therapy, Advanced Training
Washington State Supervisor | AAMFT Approved Supervisor