Marita Peak

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and National Certified Counselor with a background in trauma-informed and integrative mental health counseling. I earned my Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Adams State University and have experience in community mental health, private practice, crisis response, and individual, couples, family, and group counseling.

I work with adults, adolescents, children, couples, and families, with particular experience in trauma and PTSD, complex and developmental trauma, anxiety and depression, grief, relationship and family difficulties, neurodiversity, life transitions, and nervous-system dysregulation.

My approach is person-centered and collaborative. I draw from Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Polyvagal-informed approaches, CBT, DBT skills, Narrative Therapy, mindfulness, and attachment and family-systems perspectives. I am particularly interested in helping clients understand not only what they are experiencing, but how their experiences make sense in the context of their nervous system, relationships, and life history.

Before becoming a counselor, I worked in computer science, and also studied biology and ecopsychology. That contributed to the systems-oriented perspective I bring to counseling. I believe healing involves developing greater capacity, self-understanding, connection, and resilience—not simply reducing symptoms.

My approach is compassionate, collaborative, and focused on helping you reduce suffering in the present. I don't believe therapy always requires going deeply into the past. We can begin with what is happening in your life, body, emotions, and relationships right now, and develop practical ways to help you feel safer, more regulated, and more able to respond to life's challenges.

When experiences from the past are contributing to current symptoms or patterns, we can explore them at a pace that feels manageable and with a clear purpose: helping something change in the present. I often work from a nervous-system perspective, helping clients understand how responses such as anxiety, shutdown, anger, avoidance, or feeling overwhelmed may have developed as adaptive responses to difficult experiences.

Depending on your needs, I may draw from Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Polyvagal-informed approaches, CBT, DBT skills, Narrative Therapy, mindfulness, and grounding and resourcing techniques. Rather than applying one method to everyone, I tailor therapy to the individual.

My goal is not simply to help you understand why you are suffering, but to help you develop greater capacity, choice, connection, and resilience in your life now.

In our first session, I want you to know that you are in charge of your therapy. You decide what you are ready to talk about, what you want help with, and where you would like your life to be different. You don't have to tell your whole story or go into painful experiences before you are ready.

My role is to listen carefully, help us understand what is happening, and offer guidance or coaching where it may be useful. Together, we'll identify what is causing the most difficulty in your life right now and begin looking for practical ways to reduce suffering and create meaningful change.

I work to create an environment that is warm, respectful, curious, and nonjudgmental. I believe significant change does not have to come through force or self-criticism. Whenever possible, we will look for the most compassionate path toward meaningful change—one that respects both who you are now and the ways you learned to survive what you have been through.

You can expect to leave the first session with a clearer sense of what we might work on together and, when appropriate, a tool, perspective, or practice you can begin using right away.