Carolyn Bell, Founder (she/her)

Relationships bring meaning to our lives. I work with couples and individuals to help remove obstacles that hinder your connection and intimacy with others. Working together, I can help you achieve your therapeutic goals in a safe and trusting environment. I offer individual, couples, intensive and financial therapy in person and online.

Individual Therapy

Individual therapy can help you learn to be more fully present in the here and now, resolve issues, and enable you to heal and see new perspectives. I work with clients at points of transition across the lifespan. Together we can enhance your relationships, reduce anxiety, process trauma, and develop a healthier relationship with money (see Financial Therapy). I also help clients who are experiencing life-changing events, including loss and grief, chronic health diagnoses, adoption, and job growth and relocation.

Couples Therapy

I offer support for couples who want to strengthen their relationships and resolve issues that are preventing emotional availability, emotional attachment and sexual intimacy. My approach to couples therapy is Emotionally Focused (EFT), Imago Relationship Therapy, and Gottman Relationship Therapy. I am experienced working with heterosexual and LGBTQ+ couples discuss and make agreements around consensual nonmonogamy (CNM) and discuss challenges around intimacy, money, parenting, and trauma impacting the relationship.

Working together, I can help you:

• Strengthen your communication

• Increase sexual and nonsexual intimacy

• Explore commitment

• Heal from breaches of trust

• Improve your parenting skills

• Manage ADHD in your relationship

• Engage in Premarital Therapy

• Work towards an acceptable, amicable separation

Experience

I’m a National Board-Certified Counselor and a Licensed Professional Counselor in the District of Columbia, State of Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia. I obtained my Masters in Counseling in Clinical Mental Health from Wake Forest University. I also hold a BA from Stanford University in Economics and an MBA from Columbia Business School. I have worked in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, and am a former CFO and elite athlete. I have advanced training in treating ADHD and using Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP, Level 3), Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), OCD, and mindfulness and meditation within clinical treatment from the Institute of Meditation and Psychotherapy.

As a therapist, I make use of Experiential Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness, Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), Psychodynamic Therapy, Attachment-based Therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Gestalt Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and other modalities to increase your awareness of your internal beliefs and self-knowledge.