Therapeutic support and creative mentorship
for people that want to stop feeling deadened by perfectionism, avoidance, and fear, and start living lives that are more deeply connected, more deeply human, and more deeply creative…
Imagine having someone in your life that can hold your experience with the depth, tenderness, and expertise of a therapist, while also understanding that some transformations can only happen through the down-in-the-dirt presence of creative practice. That’s where I come in, and I’d love to work with you.
Carter Umhau, MA, LMHC
(photo by Megan Brady Moon)I’m Carter, and love working with soulful people that are interested in becoming more of themselves—not just so they can build a life that reflects the particularity of who they are, but so they can be more available to the people they love and more awake to a world that’s constantly asking us to deaden ourselves and disconnect.
Perhaps you have been seeking a Depth-oriented, regular witness to your inner life and love the idea of out-of-the-box therapeutic support. Or maybe you’re an artist that has never felt like their work has been properly understood as a crucial part of their mental health.
Or maybe you’re experiencing a creative block that you sense has deep roots, and you just want to talk it through so you can get some custom, creative direction that will support you in more deeply being with yourself and approaching your practice.
I can’t wait to get to know you.
WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
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WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER ❀
Creative Mentorship
You’re working on a creative project or even building a creative life, but perfectionism, avoidance, or a whole lot of self-doubt keep getting in the way. OR, the content of what you’re making is close to your heart and you’re needing help seeing what it is you’re making.
This is for folks wanting to work through a creative block, a specific project, question, or desire and want one-off or short-term support.
We will go deep, focusing on the thing you are making or wanting, and create a plan for next steps that are deeply reflective of who you actually are and what the work is asking of you.
Therapeutic Support + Coaching
Depth-oriented, weekly or biweekly support for those that want a a wise witness to their life, their relationships, and their creativity…and help seeing how all these things inform one another.
You’ve tried therapy before but know that having someone that gets just how much your creative practice is integral to your mental health, is the only way to truly get unstuck and feel like you’re living your life, and not someone else’s. This offering blends therapeutic presence with creative mentorship, giving you the regular rhythm of support for your whole self, without abandoning the wise and independent part of you that’s always known how to alchemize your experiences through creative practice.
You don’t even have to consider yourself a creative person
to need creative support.
Creativity is art-making, sure.
But I define it more widely, as our capacity to listen to the life force within you.
Sometimes life force leads you to start experimenting with the watercolors long-forgotten on your desk. Or maybe it calls you toward activism because your heart hurts and can no longer stay immobile.
Sometimes, creative life force is simply the quiet voice inside of you, finally telling you to get out of bed after a long season of depression and dare to get some fresh air.
Creativity as Healing
Often times, our capacity to respond to our life force is blocked because of personal, familial, or systemic trauma. Sometimes it’s blocked because we were socialized or taught to not listen to ourselves to begin with, or that we were not worth knowing deeply. Sometimes it’s blocked because we simply just don’t have an imagination yet for what could happen if things started flowing more freely.
A creative block is an entry point into deep work around your origin story, your beliefs about yourself, and how you relate to your own inner voice. A block can be an issue of life force, a crisis of faith, or even a trauma response. By diving into the places where we feel creatively blocked—whether that’s within a specific project that’s wanting to be birthed or in the more encompassing vision of a life that speaks more to our Soul’s calling—we can encounter both grief and desire. This is where healing and transformation happens, and sometimes all we need is the right person to sit in the mess of it all with us.
Frequently Asked Questions
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ABSOLUTELY. If you feel drawn to working together, I’d love to talk. Reach out or go ahead and book a session.
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I bring a warm, non-judgemental presence, an open heart, and a mind that is often thinking in webs, symbology, and metaphor. I am interested in helping you find your own specificty and getting closer to yourself. I help you reflect, reorient, recenter, and go deeper. I believe you are the authority on your life and hold the answers inside yourself.
I love creating custom creative prompts for you to deepen your work outside of session.
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I would love that! You can book a discovery call so we can talk about how that might work or get you scheduled!
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Sessions take place via Zoom! (In-person sessions in DC are available rarely, on a case-by-case basis.) If you’re looking for an in-person experience, sign up to stay in the know about my classes!
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Weekly or Biweekly Therapeutic Support + Coaching: $195/50min
Creative Mentorship: $222/60min
Please email me to see if there are any sliding scale options currently available. For Creative Mentorship, I am also willing to discuss a trade :)
Got another question?
Email me or book 15- minutes to chat, for free.
Carter Umhau is a psychotherapist and artist who believes that traditional therapy misses the mark when it de-contextualizes us, removing us from the systems we belong to, and the practices of care and creativity that help us embody and transform ourselves and our communities.
She holds a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing/Poetry, and a Master’s in Counseling Psychology—two degrees that weave together and reflect the forever intersecting ways she’s brought creativity and healing together. She was trained in psychodynamic, relational psychotherapy and began her clinical experience in an intersectional feminist clinic that developed her understanding of Critical Social Theory’s application within psychotherapy. She has over ten years of experience as a therapist, and has achieved specializations in disordered eating and body image; creative and expressive arts therapies; and Jungian/Analytical Psychology (with Graduate Certificates from both Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Salome Institute).
Carter loves working with folks that are living lives that feel a bit off the beaten path or with identities that don’t neatly fit into one category or community. She celebrates diverse expressions of gender, sexuality, and identity and wants to support you in living with more delight, presence, and ease—in your relationship with yourself, your loved ones, and your creative life force.
Given her background, Carter is particularly well suited to work with people on their relationship to perfectionism, avoidance, and procrastination, and does so with an anti-capitalist and process-oriented approach that will support you in deeply transforming not only how you talk to yourself, but how you live a life that compassionately (rather than rigidly) centers your values, needs, and desires without becoming navel-gazing.