Erica Speegle, LPC-A. ADHD, Anxiety/Depression, Trauma, Life Transitions.
This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before
- Maya Angelou
Erica Speegle, LPC-A
Supervised by Marla Sanderson
Professional Profile
Erica is both an Art Therapist (ATRP) and Counselor (LPC-A). She holds a Masters of Counseling specializing in Art Therapy from Pennsylvania Western University. She values agency, creativity, and compassion.
Erica uses a trauma-informed, person-centered approach that keeps the client as the expert on their experience while offering psychoeducation, skill building and compassionate support for the client to achieve change. She uses IFS and DBT skills training in her practice and draws from other relevant modalities when appropriate.
Before coming to the mental health field, Erica worked in education for seven years, both with elementary and high-school students. Now in her role as a therapist, she is serving all ages of clients, adults (18+), adolescents (13-17), and children (6-12).
Erica specializes in ADHD with all ages, as well as anxiety, depression, complex trauma, relationship stress, and life transitions. She is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and is an ethical non-monogamy informed clinician.
Specialties
ADHD
Anxiety
Depression
LGBTQ+
Life Transitions
Relationship Issues
Stress
Trauma
Insurance
Aetna
BCBS
Curative
Sana
Private Pay / Self Pay
Welcome!
Hey there! Chances are you have an idea of something in your life that you want to change, or you’re experiencing a challenge that you’d like support navigating. As your therapist, my role would be to hold a space where we can creatively explore the best ways for you to do that. You are the best expert on you, and the goals that you have for yourself in our time together will be best reached with an understanding of your unique skills, resources, and experience. I’m here to listen, reflect what you share with me, offer insight from my knowledge and training, and collaborate with you to make movement towards the life you want to lead.
How I Work
My priority in the room is being fully present with you as you are today. The work that we are going to do together is deeply personal. Every client is unique, and the specifics of how a session goes will be shaped by you. The long-term goals that you set for therapy will be informed by the session-to-session experiences that you bring. My job is to weave together the information that you share with me to help us both see the full picture of your experience and help you decide what changes might be meaningful to you, because it’s impossible to change what you can’t see.
One thing that is consistent with my clients is that I begin from a place of ensuring appropriate resources to ground and regulate. Although it can be challenging to slow down and focus on how to care for our emotional and somatic selves first, this is the first step to safely push into more difficult territory and the hard work of transformation.
Everyone will come into the room with some tools that already work for them sometimes. My approach is to make clear what is already working, even if only occasionally, and expand on those building blocks to make something sustainable and reliable.
Because I am an Art Therapist, I invite all my clients to play with visual expression in the therapy space. Some clients have stories about art being for other people, either for children or for “real” artists who are creative types. Let me say loudly, this is NOT the case! Art therapy is for anyone who is willing to try it.
One reason to use visual expression in therapy is to take the experience happening inside of you and put it outside of you using a method other than talking. We use words all the time! By transforming your thoughts, feelings, experiences and goals into a picture, you have to think about it differently. It engages different parts of your brain and lets you turn it to a different angle. The only thing that makes art in art therapy “good” is if it means something to you.
This is also a good moment to say that art therapy is not a space where I will look at your art and tell you what it means. In fact, it will work the other way around. It only matters what the art means to you. I will approach your artwork with curiosity and openness. I might ask questions, or point out patterns and similarities or differences to other pieces you’ve made, just the same way I’d approach any information you share with me in the room. And sometimes we make art that doesn’t mean anything at all!
Creating can just be about the act itself, using the practice to come into the present moment. What a great tool to add to your mindfulness skill set!
My job is to weave together the information that you share with me to help us both see the full picture of your experience and help you decide what changes might be meaningful to you, because it’s impossible to change what you can’t see.
Therapist Spotlight
What made you decided to become a counselor?
Working in education, I got to know a lot of students who really struggled with their mental health. At a certain point I decided that I wanted to have the skills and training to be able to help them. (And honestly, being an Art Therapist just sounded cooler than being a regular therapist, and it turns out it is very cool). I love getting to be with people on their journeys and to offer insight and support towards the meaningful transformation folks are seeking.
If you could teach the world one skill or technique to improve their lives, what would it be?
Taking a curious pause. It can be so hard in a moment to slow down and make room for curiosity, but it can be transformative. Sometimes you find unexpected answers when you make just a little room for something to surprise you.
Have you personally been to counseling? If so, what did you learn about yourself?
I have! And I learned so much! I began my therapy journey over fifteen years ago, and while I have had many different counselors and gone through many phases of work, I look back at who I was at the start with a huge amount of pride and compassion. Look at that sweet, scared, courageous me! She was so hurt and having to work so hard just to keep her head above water. I have so much gratitude for her making the choice to get help and make changes. I learned that I am capable of so much and that I can trust myself with my life.
If you could recommend one book to all your clients, what would it be?
I think the book I have most often recommended to clients is Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg. It’s a series of essays and exercises about accessing the Zen concept of the wild mind through timed free writing practice. Natalie Goldberg has many other books about writing, but this is the one that helped me to break through the performance of myself to write from my authentic experience. I think that anyone can benefit from letting go for five minutes of uninterrupted, honest words on the page.
How do you personally practice self care?
Hydration! Daily journaling, getting outside, meditation, and planning intentional shapeless time for my ADHD brain to roll and ramble through whatever little whimsies spark joy.
How do you relate to Mindfulness? How do you incorporate it in your sessions?
While I was in graduate school, I began a regular meditation practice and was taught something that shifted my relationship with it dramatically. The moment of success in meditation is when you notice that you’ve gotten lost in distraction and choose to return.
What a gift! This simple reframe, that I was doing it right when I noticed that I’d dropped it and got to pick it up again, changed that moment from being one of frustration to one of celebration. No matter how many times I had to pick it up again, it was fine because
that was the point. Mindfulness became easier outside of the meditation space as more and more often I brought myself back to what was happening in the moment I was living, releasing the noise and taking joy in the return. I don’t think meditation is the only path to mindfulness. So many things can bring us into ourself! I want to help my clients find the things that will work for them. I think that when we can step back into the now and see the truth of our thoughts, feelings, and experience, we are empowered to make the choices that we truly want given our reality and craft our life one moment at a time.