Here’s where you get unstuck.
About Matt Meyers, LMHCA
IFS and EMDR therapist based in Seattle’s U-District. I specialize in therapy for anxiety, depression, trauma, and relationship issues.
About me
An evolving human.
There’s a saying in the therapy world, “therapists can only take clients as far as they’ve gone themselves,” and these are the words that guide my practice.
I can only accept my clients because I’ve learned to accept myself. I’m not afraid of my clients’ emotions, because I’m not afraid of my own. And I’ve experienced how vulnerable it can feel to be in therapy, and so I hold the vulnerability of my clients with great respect.
What makes me a good therapist is that I’ve done, and continue to do, my own work. I’ve experienced anxiety, depression, trauma, and relationship issues. I’ve experienced the pain and the joy of healing. And these experiences help me show up for my clients with empathy and compassion.
Where we’ll start our work together...
Moving from feeling bad to feeling good requires change—in yourself, your relationships, maybe your career—and change is hard.
Even when something in your life feels off or painful, it’s still familiar to you. Change means stepping into the unknown, without any guarantee of where you’ll end up. “And what if I end up somewhere worse?”
But fear of change keeps us stuck in the pain and struggles we most want to be free of. By seeking out therapy, you’ve decided that facing the unknown is worth the risk, and that’s not a small thing.
You’ve taken the first courageous step, and I’m here to help you take the next.
Change starts with acceptance.
It’s only when we can accept ourselves as we are that we can truly begin to change. But since acceptance can be hard to get to on our own, I’ll start by showing you how.
I’ll accept you exactly as you are, and welcome every part of you into our sessions. And once we make space for you to finally show up and be seen, we can start figuring out what it is that needs to change and how we want to go about it.
You lead, I’ll guide.
You know your life better than I ever will, so you set the direction. My job is to bring tools, perspective, and presence to the work, and to walk alongside you throughout the process.
The change you’ll experience comes in different forms.
- Some of it will be internal: understanding yourself more deeply, healing old pain, releasing stories and burdens you’ve been carrying for a long time.
- Some of it will be external: discovering new ways of relating to others and showing up in your life that help you feel alive and fulfilled.
Either way, the work moves at your pace, in the direction you want to go.
Therapy with me is…
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I’m not going to try to figure you out from the outside or steer you toward a conclusion I’ve already reached. Instead, I’ll stay genuinely curious about what’s happening for you, and I’ll trust that something, somewhere deep inside you already knows what you need and where you need to go. Some of the most powerful moments in therapy come from following this trail wherever it leads.
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Most of what makes life hard has something to do with relationships. Not necessarily the ones you’re in now, but the ones that shaped how you learned to feel safe, loved, and worthy. Anxiety, depression, trauma, and relationship issues are often expressions of this. Understanding how our struggles relate to past and present relationships is often where relief starts.
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Maybe “fun” isn’t quite the right word, but the kind of therapy I practice isn’t what most people expect, and my clients often tell me, “This is so weird” in our early sessions. I’ll ask you strange questions and get you to notice things you’ve never noticed before. And once you get the hang of it, it tends to feel creative, surprisingly playful, and deeply effective.
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I recognize that many people experience ongoing pain and trauma from societal forces like sexism, racism, and transphobia, to name only a few. I don’t take the mental health impacts of these lightly, and I work to actively resist and dismantle systems of oppression.
In our work together, this might mean helping you notice beliefs you’ve absorbed from a culture that didn’t have your best interests in mind—beliefs that may have been ingrained as just “how things are” or “how you are.” For some, releasing these cultural burdens can be a vital part of the healing process.
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The work we do together can go deep into old pain, traumatic memories, or parts of yourself you’ve kept at a distance. And this depth is what makes therapy effective, but only when you feel safe and prepared. So before we work with anything painful, I’ll prepare you for what to expect. We’ll go at a pace that feels right for you. And you’ll never be pushed somewhere you’re not ready to go.
My approach
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A gentle but powerful approach to healing and bringing harmony to your inner world. IFS is built upon one key insight: the mind is not a single, unified thing. It’s organized more like a family, or a community of distinct inner voices, each with its own perspective, its own emotional age, its own history of how and why it came to be. For example, the part of you that withdraws from conflict isn’t the same as the part that desperately wants connection. In IFS, we get to know those parts directly—even have conversations with them—which can feel a little strange at first, but quickly starts to make sense. Over time, this work leads to lasting shifts in how you think, feel, and show up in your life.
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Some painful experiences never finish processing. We get stuck replaying them, feeling triggered by them, unable to move on, even when the event itself is long over. EMDR uses eye movements or other “bilateral stimulation” to help your brain finally complete that processing, so the experiences can be laid to rest in the past. It’s particularly effective for trauma, but also helps with anxiety, grief, and resolving anything we feel stuck on from the past.
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A practical framework for accepting, regulating, and working with big or difficult emotions. EET is often the foundation that makes deeper healing work possible. For example, before you can process old pain, you need the skills to stay present with it. You’ll learn to move through difficult emotions without getting overwhelmed or shutting down, and to take action that aligns with your values.
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The quality of the bond that did—or didn’t—develop between you and your caregivers as a child becomes the blueprint for all your adult relationships. This blueprint is called your attachment style. If these early relationships were marked by neglect, abuse, or caregivers who were overwhelmed or absent, we often end up carrying patterns of anxious or avoidant attachment into adulthood, where we’re always worried we’ll be left or always keeping others at a distance. Attachment-focused therapy helps repair the core attachment wounds and build the sense of safety that may never have had the chance to develop.
Learn more about therapy for avoidant attachment and therapy for anxious attachment.
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Emotions are felt in the body, trauma is stored in the body, and chronic stress can leave your body stuck in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. Working with the body directly through attention and subtle movement can help you process stuck or hard-to-name emotions and find your way back to a regulated, grounded baseline.
Training
Therapy modalities
- Internal Family Systems, Level 1 Training, 2020
- EMDR Basic Training, March 2026
General education
- Attachment Theory, 2024
- Domestic Violence Abuser Training, 2024
- Trans Affirming Care, 2023
- Somatic Theory and Oppression, 2023
- Digital Crisis Counseling with LGBTQ+ Young People, Trevor Project, 2021
Credentials
- MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Antioch University Seattle
- Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate (License #MC70041554)
- Supervised by Anthony Rella, LMHC (License #LH60608531)
