Pamela Krueger, LMFT, LMHC, REAT
Expressive Arts Psychotherapist
Pamela (she/her) found her way to counseling psychology as a second career after personal tragedy struck her family and she found her way through it with creative writing. She searched for, and found, a form of psychotherapy that allowed her to support others who might also want or need multiple ways of expressing what was inside to process experiences and heal.
She earned her Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy (“EXA”) in 2020 from the California Institute of Integral Studies, simultaneously completing her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Oregon State University. She created a clinical counseling program at a local nonprofit called Cancer Lifeline (an organization already aware of the importance of creative expression in healing) immediately thereafter that grew from herself in 2019 to fourteen clinicians in 2023, becoming its Clinical Program Director. Working with all ages of individuals, couples, and families in that context, she mentored over 20 support group facilitators and counseling clinicians there, rooted in both client work and practitioner development. In 2022, she completed the academic qualifying phase of a doctoral program in Expressive Arts Therapy, Consulting, and Education from the European Graduate School, amongst a diverse group of skilled practitioners from 12 countries. As a part of this PhD program, she taught a yearlong professional certificate program in Expressive Arts Therapy to other therapists and social workers. She has supported many people through medical traumas, the existential threat that cancer represents, PTSD and C-PTSD, and the anxiety and depression that so many people face with the challenges life can present.
As a therapist, Pamela meets people where they are, honors each individual’s expertise in themselves, avoids making assumptions, practices cultural humility, listens deeply, offers creative experiments in support of client goals, provides resources to promote nervous system calm functioning, moves at the speed of trust, and generally offers experiences toward awakened wholeness and eudaemonic (the intersection of meaning, growth, expressiveness, and self-actualization in life) well-being.
The roots of her expressive arts approach is phenomenological (experientially-based learning and knowing), relational-cultural (acknowledges how we influence one another in all forms of relationships), multicultural-feminist (liberation and strengths-based), and integrally-informed (sensing the emergence of what wants to be revealed as a part of life’s transformative change processes).
Pamela is dual licensed as a marriage and family therapist and mental health counselor, as well as holding the recognized credential as a registered expressive arts therapist, and, as a part of movement-based and embodied practices in expressive arts therapy, is also a registered yoga teacher. She is comfortable working with all ages and has experience in child and play therapy, therapy with adolescents, teens, young adults, adults, elder adults, couples, and families. While her primary experience was initially in the context of life-threatening illness in the form of cancer, she has supported people with many challenges in life that are part of the human experience beyond cancer.
Areas of Focus
Responding to sudden, unwelcome change
Creating pathways towards intentional change
Expanding the range of play for addressing life’s challenges
Developing resources for healing from trauma and trauma recovery
Releasing and letting go of past patterns that no longer serve growth and healing
Exploring new ways of orienting to life’s disorienting dilemmas, supporting the reduction of symptoms like anxiety, depression, and other forms of dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system
Allowing for the full expression of grief and anticipatory grief, whether losses are ambivalent, complicated, involve bereavement, or invoke past experiences
Multimodal and intermodal forms of creative expression to support growth and healing, including categories like; visual and metaphorical, poetic and creative prose and journaling, sound and harmonious rhythms of life, dramatic arts and serious play, and embodied and authentic movement
Fees
$180/session (individuals, couples, families, 50-60 minutes)
$250/session (couples, families, 80-minutes)
If paying my session fee would involve a financial hardship, please know that I offer a financial grant for set periods of time to alleviate this hardship. If you’d like to have a conversation about how this works, please email or call me using my contact information below.
Insurance
Premera
Lifewise
Interested in Expressive Arts Life Coaching?
If it feels like coaching is more aligned with your needs at this time, I also offer expressive arts life coaching, supporting life transitions and goals. To schedule a fee-free coaching consultation, please contact me using the contact information below.
REAT Supervision
I am qualified to provide REAT supervision and offer individual as well as group REAT supervision, with groups generally forming on their own and contacting me together. For more information, please email me.
Location
Shelterwood’s main office location in Pioneer Square (108 S Jackson St) and virtually via telehealth.
Scheduling Information
To connect with Pamela, email her at pamelakrueger@outlook.com or call her at (425) 526-9575.
“I don’t know but together we do.”
— Dr. Danielle Drake