Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Neesley.
Hi Sean, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story really started when I sold everything I owned and bought a one-way ticket to New Zealand. I had no idea at the time but that adventure would come full circle and bring me back to my hometown with a completely different perspective of who I was and how I wanted to show up in the world. I was keen to explore the world with complete freedom and spontaneity, to strengthen and hone my intuition, and embrace the unknown as a way of testing my ability to overcome whatever obstacles I encountered. During my travels I began to practice yoga and meditation in a much more serious way which led me to become a yoga teacher. For the next 10 years I found myself immersed in my role as an instructor of yoga teacher training programs- first in Sedona, Arizona at a magical place called 7 Centers Yoga Arts (which sadly no longer exists). It was there that I met my future wife who eventually brought me to Santa Cruz to work and live in the community at Mount Madonna Center where she had spent the past few years. While we were living at Mount Madonna we both discovered that we had always considered a career in psychotherapy so we decided to enroll in graduate school together. I received my masters degree in counseling psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California where I had the pleasure of diving into the depths of Psyche through the mysteries of poetry, somatics, myth, metaphor and symbol. I began my private practice as a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a focus on couples and individual therapy in 2023 and bring the full range of my experiences learning, training, and practicing in formal and informal ways over the past 25 years. Throughout my explorations I have learned to truly embrace and embody my passion for exploring the internal world as fully and fearlessly as the external world.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My journey has not always been smooth. As a traveler I found myself truly lost, broke, and seemingly broken many times but each time was able to rest, regroup, and re-engage in the world around me to find my way forward. The path to licensure as a marriage and family therapist is long, expensive, and full of a seemingly endless array of hoops to jump through. I found myself discouraged, doubting, and completely overwhelmed all along the way. In both my travels and my studies, I learned that when things get hard it worked best for me to zoom in on the next small step right in front of me and focus all my energy on simply taking that one right now. At other times, when my momentum resumed, I could look up again and take in the bigger picture- feeling energized by the progress I’d made and emboldened to keep trekking toward the mountain ahead.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Sean Neesley, LMFT?
I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist working in private practice based in Santa Cruz, California. I specialize in couples therapy and also find myself working a lot with men in individual therapy. I also often work with women, LGBTQ+ folx and occasionally adolescents. I am particularly interested in relationships, communication, and systems which applies not only to couples and partners but also within each individual and the various parts of ourselves. At my core, I am a person-centered therapist which means that I believe we are all inherently whole and capable of healing and growth. My job as a therapist is therefore less about teaching and telling clients what to do and more about helping them discover their own answers though the right questions, reflections, and supportive environment. As a couples therapist I rely heavily on the incredible model of Emotionally Focused Therapy which provides a clear map to help couples identify their negative cycles of communication and build empathy and connection through identifying and expressing the feelings and needs driving their coping strategies to conflict. With individuals, my practice often centers around Internal Family Systems therapy which facilitates powerful experiential healing through somatic and image-rich inner dialogues with various parts of oneself. These dialogues often illuminate insights about how one has learned to cope with life’s challenges and how to expand their strategies to promote greater wellbeing and growth. I bring a calm, centered, and authentic presence to my work and enjoy weaving elements of mindfulness, somatics, and experiential practices into sessions when applicable. I truly love my job and feel incredibly honored to be invited into the inner worlds of my clients.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
For folks who are interested or beginning the path to becoming a therapist I would remind them that the journey to licensure is long and challenging but it does not last forever. If you keep moving you will get there! Think of it more like a marathon than a sprint and remember to enjoy the scenery along the way. Do whatever you can to find teachers, mentors, and colleagues who embody the qualities you most aspire to as a therapist and trust that you will soak those qualities up by just being around them. Also, during grad school, the best advice I received from a 3rd year student when I was just beginning was “read what you want.” At the time I didn’t know exactly what they meant but I soon learned that there is so much assigned reading that there is no way I could get to it all and it was much more valuable to focus on the assignments that inspired and engaged me and let the rest work itself out.
Pricing:
- 50-min Individual Therapy – $200
- 60-min Couples Therapy – $225
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.seanneesley.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-neesley
