Carol Roll, PhD

Psychotherapy For Adults

I treat a wide range of difficulties involving feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, and distress, and I specialize in the treatment of people with histories of trauma and abuse.

Much of my work focuses on who you have learned you are and what you have learned about the world in the context of your attachment relationships. If we learn that we are unworthy and unsafe, we develop patterns of relating that defend us against these feelings and against feared future pain. But these defensive patterns actually prevent us from experiencing connections that can allow us to understand ourselves and the world differently. By guarding against vulnerability, we maintain shame and suffering, and the traumas of our past shape our present and our future. As Carl Jung so succinctly put it, “That which we do not bring into consciousness appears in our lives as fate.”

I view psychotherapy as a route to making conscious what is unconscious, and to ending recurring fears, pain, and suffering in order to live more authentically, courageously, and fully in the present moment. I view the therapy relationship as a collaborative one: Your work in therapy is shaped by you and what you bring to each session. Because I believe there is no single best way, in the work of therapy I draw from many diverse schools of psychology, including psychodynamic, interpersonal, cognitive-behavioral, Jungian, sensorimotor, biopsychosocial, and cross-cultural.

I have been a psychologist in Washington State since 1998. Prior to private practice, I worked in a mental health center, a university psychological services center, a day-treatment center, a psychiatric hospital, and a medical center. My previous research focused on post-traumatic stress.

Please feel welcome to contact me to find out if I’m taking new patients and if you’d like to determine if I’d be a good fit for you.