Hannah Campbell, LMFT

"I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."
                                                                 Mark Twain

Mark Twain describes where I was raised: in a farm family and a surgeon family. A family that valued grit, heavy lifting, “no complaining,” and working with what can be seen and held. Yet, I choose to devote my life to a profession where emotion and internal experience is not only valued, it is a vehicle for boundless growth. A profession where we can’t always explain through controlled studies what is happening in the room.

While growing up around a “suck it up” mindset, dance was my therapeutic space. In class or onstage, I took all that happened over the course of the day and embodied it, grieved through movement. I shared the most vulnerable sides of me with people whom I trusted deeply and in a language that felt safe. I learned while dancing, that life is movement – it is highs and it is lows. It is sharp, forceful, surprising. It is soft, flowing, quiet. And, just as in dance you celebrate each moment of stillness or grandiosity, I have found this to be a defining theme in how I work as a therapist.

One of the motivators that brought me into this field was working in documentary storytelling where I became enamored with the uniqueness and resiliencies of the human spirit. Since a young girl, I have been keenly attuned to suffering and wanted to help people experience their full vibrancy. I noticed how many of us had not yet met ourselves beneath the feedback, treatment, and trauma from others and society. My therapeutic approach founds itself on the basis of genuine care for that life force within people.

I began building a private practice in Santa Monica two years ago and work primarily with teens and adults in their twenties and thirties. Transitional moments of life are of special interest to me because they can be formative in how a person makes sense of past experience and applies it to a new movement. I work from the perspective that often we develop ways of being or reacting that once helped our survival but may now being holding us back from our goals. If a dynamic it is still necessary for safety, we will use that awareness to decrease shame and guilt around the dynamic. With this non-judgmental frame we can define safety for the client, begin exploring the fullness of their experience, choose how to make meaning of it, and envision a path forward. 

In addition to my private practice, I have worked in a school-based setting for the past two years, particularly with teens at early stages of substance use in efforts to prevent possible substance use issues. So often I hear, “I’m overwhelmed” by life. Teens say they feel they’ve inherited a crumbling world and are required to steer it back on course to secure a future. Pair this with generational trauma, financial stressors, social stressors, world stressors, and having so much information at every second of every day; it is so very much to hold. Within the therapeutic space, alongside someone genuinely interested in their unique sensibilities, they can fully explore their being. And they begin to appreciate their ideas, their interests, and their emotional selves.

I take my role seriously as a therapeutic modeler. As a modeler I am present, curious, and spontaneous. I show up as a full person and model how we can explore emotions or difficult thoughts and then use grounding in the present to re-center on a sense of security and stability. We can tolerate the intensity of being human together, with all of its stillness and movement. With client goals ranging from processing a past relationship, healing from sexual assault, caring for shame related to OCD, or moving through existential questions, I do look to evidence-based practice for certain presentations. So, while the practical interventions I use vary, how I bring myself into the space as a celebratory partner remains the same.

I appreciate that you devoted precious few minutes to my writing. I hope that after reading this you may find your own version of a dance studio to seek refuge in for a few hours this week. Perhaps it’s a quiet place, a person, or a meditative trade. Perhaps you are not currently reading this article for that very reason and instead are present in a sacred space, and for that I’m also very glad!

To contact Hannah as Pre-Licensed Rep and 3000 Club Co-Chair, email her at prelicensed@lacamft.org.

Hannah Campbell, LMFT, is in private practice in Santa Monica where she specializes in life transitions, developing identity and healthy relationships as a teen, rediscovering the self as an older adult, and building a thriving partnership and family. Hannah has an MA in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine along with two undergraduate degrees, Psychology and Cinematic Arts, from USC. She also provides early interventional substance counseling to teens and families at a local non-profit. Website: hannahcampbelltherapy.com.