Olivia Hartman

Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)

CBT is the base for many therapy practices, and a treatment method I have been using since I began therapy services in 2022. I have experience using CBT to help clients identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts and behaviors that contribute to emotional distress. I’ve applied CBT techniques across a range of presentations, including anxiety, depression, and adjustment difficulties. I tailor CBT interventions to each client’s readiness and goals, ensuring the process remains person-centered and paced appropriately.

Compassion Focused

My approach emphasizes creating a warm, validating, and safe therapeutic environment where clients can begin to understand the function of self-criticism and the protective role it often serves. I guide clients in developing their “compassionate self” through imagery, mindfulness, and experiential exercises aimed at activating the soothing system. I also focus on helping clients balance self-improvement with self-kindness, fostering resilience and emotional regulation through compassion-focused practices.

Trauma Informed Care

My overall therapeutic work is grounded in trauma-informed principles, ensuring sensitivity to the impact of trauma across all areas of intervention. I emphasize safety, choice, trust, collaboration, and empowerment in all interactions. I avoid pathologizing trauma responses, instead viewing them as adaptive coping mechanisms. I integrate regulation and stabilization techniques and ensure interventions are paced to avoid re-traumatization.

Attachment-based

I take an attachment-based approach, focusing on how early and past relationships shape the way people navigate closeness, trust, and emotional safety now. Many of my clients feel stuck in patterns where they want connection but also find themselves pulling away, shutting down, or questioning others’ intentions. I don’t just talk about these patterns—I pay attention to how they show up in real time, including in our work together. I’ll name what I’m noticing, even when it’s subtle. Using psychoeducation, narrative work, and problem-solving, I help clients understand where these responses come from and how to shift them. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s helping clients feel more steady, more self-aware, and less reactive in their relationships.