Amber Valett

APCC #15737, AMFT #144349 - Associate Psychotherapist


About Amber

I am devoted to providing compassionate, encouraging, empowering therapy supporting my clients in the search for a life of meaning, wisdom, fulfilment and happiness, no matter your journey thus far. I believe in the potential in each of us to live well and bravely, for our own happiness, and for all that we share with others in this daunting and beautiful world we find ourselves in. If you are in need of a proverbial "traveling companion" to walk beside you and lift a light on the path while you practice seeing in the dark and igniting your own light, I may be your guide.

calm water

My Background & Approach

I am a registered Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC) and a registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) in California devoted to providing compassionate, encouraging, empowering therapy. I support my clients in their search for a life of meaning, wisdom, fulfillment and happiness. Before I obtained my Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy and my undergraduate degree before that, I was a graduate of Wilderness Awareness School’s much-loved and renowned program ‘The Immersion’, a formative rite of passage study in nature connection, wilderness skills, self & community development and cosmological joy. Proudly born and raised in underrated little ol’ Fresno, California, I credit much of who I am to the early bright influences of my maternal grandparents (a special education teacher and a psychology professor), and my very humanistic Unitarian Universalist minister during my adolescence. These were my first mentors of great heart who modeled how to be present with lovingkindness and delight in curiosity about life with my younger self, their examples of which I now strive to carry forth into my work with clients. My life has been shaped by experiences in the arts and sciences ranging across human-nature connection, poetry, interfaith spirituality, lived philosophy, sacred ceremony, handcrafts and historical recreation arts, a love for anthropology and evolutionary science, evidence-based human progress, various positions serving kids and families of all varieties, doing ethical business-with-heart, lifelong inquiry into what the universe is made of and so much more - a sense of the imaginal in the everyday.

I believe in the potential in each of us to live well and bravely, for our own happiness, and for all that we share with others in this daunting and beautiful world we find ourselves in. If you are in need of a proverbial “traveling companion” to walk beside you and lift a light on the path while you practice seeing in the dark and igniting your own light, I may be your guide.

Areas of Expertise

While I am a therapist capable of providing high quality therapy to people experiencing a wide range of life issues, the following focus areas are my “niche” areas of greatest professional passion:

Grief, Loss & Life Transitions

Grief doesn’t just happen when a loved one’s life has come to an end, though for many, that is the beginning of an awareness of grief.

There is an ancient companionship between love and impermanence. Grief can look like the ending or changing of a cherished relationship with a person, a place, a community, a beloved pet, a belief or one’s own or another’s identity, whether gradually or suddenly - and we can have anticipatory grief for coming changes. We can have grief for the absence of something we have never had. But within this heartache there is also a great gift to be

found.

“The Big Questions”: Spirituality, Socio-Religious Identity & Existential Issues

An aspect of our lives sometimes overlooked in mainstream therapy settings, the interrelated issues of spirituality, socio-religious identity/ identities (including secular thought and spirituality) and existential/philosophical questioning has been an integral part of our human species’ understanding of what life is about for millennia. These issues are known to be capable of having a significant impact on our mental wellness.

Embracing diversity of thought and perception, my role as a therapist is not to prescribe to my clients what they should believe about the big questions of existence, but to help them explore for themselves what they believe – and how their beliefs about existence affect their lives, and the lives of others. Informed by an anthropological understanding of the long history of human thought, I walk with my clients on their journey to discover deep delight in a life of meaning.

Eco-psychology

Our human minds have evolved alongside the natural world from the beginning - indeed, we are a part of nature. To this day, whether we know it or not, we have a relationship with our surroundings (including built environments) that affects how we think about our lives, our responsibilities, our role in the world and what’s possible for the future. Our relationship with our environment sculpts our consciousness, and our consciousness shapes our environment. Many yearn to feel at home, searching endlessly for a place to belong. What if we were already home, immersed in an ecology quietly awaiting our recognition of our belonging within it? No matter our ancestry, we are all native to earth.

Embracing Adulthood (ages 18+)

We were not born to be children forever, but to grow into our fully adult selves. Adulthood is a stage of life that can be embraced with the pleasure of freedom and responsibility together. I offer a counter-narrative to the growing cultural trend of regarding “adulting” as something to be merely tolerated with regret. Adulthood is a time of freedom, capability, independence, interdependence, power, responsibility, privilege, accountability, bravery, wisdom, ingenuity, creativity, sensuality, satisfaction and vivaciousness: a fierce aliveness.

Therapeutic Approach

Numerous studies show that the most effective factor for a successful course of psychotherapy is the quality of the therapeutic relationship between client and therapist. Beyond that, most therapists utilize a host of evidence-based modalities to empower clients in their healing. Some of the modalities I most often use are:

• Humanistic & Existential therapies

• Narrative therapy

• Trauma-informed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

• Principles drawn from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)*

• Eco-therapy

• Bibliotherapy

• Mindfulness-Based

• Strength-Based

• Ethics & Values Development

*Please note: formal Dialectical Behavior Therapy is traditionally prescribed in a highly structured manner, the full course of which I do not currently offer.

What Makes Me & My Practice Unique

I believe that therapy is the work of applied philosophy: the search for wisdom in the pursuit of happiness. We come to therapy to soothe and strengthen our battered hearts as we discover how to cope, and how to live. We come to share our deep griefs and losses as well as our joys and successes, however large or small. We come to be witnessed by one who believes in our inherent goodness, who has faith in our capabilities, to know that we are not alone. As we grow in bravery, clarity and joy, we discover not only how to decrease our own suffering and increase our own happiness, but also how to live in such a way that we help others to do the same.