About Patricia
Patricia Sumlin helps people who are worn out by stress, anxiety, relationship strain, grief, or life transitions. She is patient and direct. Patricia draws on 25 years of clinical work to guide practical steps people can use right away.
She uses straightforward, down-to-earth language. Sessions aim to build coping skills, emotion regulation, and clearer thinking about choices. Patricia places emphasis on honesty, respect, and a collaborative working relationship so people feel heard and taken seriously.
How Patricia works
Her practice combines approaches that focus on acceptance and values, attachment patterns, and client-led reflection. Patricia blends these methods with behavior-focused techniques to help people change habits that get in the way of wellbeing. She also draws on methods that teach distress tolerance and mindfulness skills.
Patricia has a long history in diverse clinical settings. Her work has included outpatient clinics, DBT group programs, medical behavioral health, homeless shelters, residential programs for dual diagnosis, trauma-informed services in rural Alaska, re-entry programs for people coming out of prison, and hospice bereavement support. She holds a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist credential (LMFT) and practices in Washington.
Patricia works with a wide range of concerns including trauma and abuse, addictions, parenting strains, ADHD, bipolar disorder, body image, caregiving stress, and issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Her goal is to help people gain confidence, steady coping skills, and clearer direction. Sessions are offered in English and available through video calls, phone, live chat, or text messaging.
Getting started involves completing a short matching questionnaire and scheduling a time that fits the client and therapist.
Patricia lists 15 ways of working on the entry:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Gottman Method
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
What Patricia works with
The areas below are the ones Patricia selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Training and background
| Register | LMFT |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 25 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Washington |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches and online options that fit your life
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on clarifying personal values and taking small committed steps toward them while learning to live with difficult thoughts and feelings. It can help when anxiety, depression, or life changes make it hard to move forward. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationship patterns influence current connections and trust; it can help people understand and shift repeating dynamics in close relationships. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes a respectful, non-directive stance where the therapist listens carefully and follows the client's lead to build insight and self-direction.Choosing the right approach is part of working together. Patricia will talk with each person about goals, needs, and preferences and then recommend methods or combine approaches that fit. The process is collaborative and adjusts as progress and priorities change.
Online therapy is offered through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make it easier to fit sessions into busy schedules. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and exercises, phone works well when bandwidth is limited, live chat is good for brief check-ins or lower-intensity work, and text messaging can support ongoing reflection between sessions. These options help people keep continuity of care, manage time, and access consistent support from licensed professionals regardless of location.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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