Cat McLaughlin, MA, NCC, LPC

Psychotherapy for Adults, specializing in Anxiety, Overachieving, Sensory-Processing Sensitive & Neurodiversity

I approach our time together with the desire to quickly connect with you and help you feel better, from the inside, out. Upon examining your symptoms together, we need to consider what happened to you rather than determining “quick fixes” to what you’re experiencing. My approach to therapy is warm and traima-informed, and we’ll laugh a lot along the way. What’s different with my approach is I’m not a blank slate. You’ll know I’m with you, and that makes a huge difference.

As an AEDP clinician, I’m trained to create the conditions necessary to allow your emotions to be felt and expressed, together. We’ll quickly get to what’s bothering you, addressing your most pressing concerns first, and you’ll learn strategies to enable you to have some relief. As you feel better, emotions are uncovered, acknowledged, and felt. I am interested in developing our relationship, which provides a safe place to explore your concerns together in a respectful and collaborative way. I value your time, and am committed to working with intentional focus, understanding that you probably don’t want to be “in therapy” forever.

I’ve studied lots of approaches (they all seem to have acronyms - CBT, DBT, ACT - to name a few) and I’ve found that AEDP is the best way I know how to help you make lasting change. It is an evidenced-based therapy designed to change your physiology, not just give you techniques to manage. Of course you’ll learn skills along the way, but with AEDP we’re working on “from the ground up” change rather than managing symptoms.

I often consider myself more of an emotion coach than anything else. Emotions are not good or bad, they just are - but that’s not something most of us have learned. Instead we brace against them or tuck them away - but they always find their way to the surface. They just might look a little different than we typically imagine emotions to look - chronic pain, migraine, stress, anger, disconnection, depression, are just some of the ways unprocessed emotions can manifest.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can be woven in when therapy seems to have hit a roadblock you have something specific you’d like to process. EMDR is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and other distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, panic disorders, and specific stressors. I offer EMDR in two ways - either incorporated into our weekly sessions, or in an intensive, multi-hour to multi-day format. There are pros and cons to each, and your availability and speed with which you’d like to feel better are both factors in which method we choose.

Mindfulness Meditation has been an interest of mine for as long as I can remember. In 2022, I embarked on a teacher training with Daizan Skinner and Zenways, and am presently a 200-hour certified Mindfulness Meditation teacher, working towards my IMTA designation in 2026. At the very least, you’ll learn how to scan your body and regulate your nervous system. We can also work more intensely on developing a meditation habit, if you’d like.

I welcome all in my practice, and have a special interest in working with people with chronic anxiety, overachievers, and those living within a spectrum of sensory processing sensitivity & neurodiversity.

Contact me

Courses and training experiences…

AEDP Institute - Diana Fosha, PhD; Jennifer Edlin, MFT; Ronald J Frederick, PhD; Kari Gleiser, PhD; Kate Halliday, LCSW; Jerry Lamagna, LCSW; Benjamin Lipton, LCSW; Ben Medley, LCSW; Jeanne Newhouse, NCPsyA; Karen Pando-Mars, MFT; Natasha Prenn, LCSW; Eileen M. Russell, PhD; SueAnne Piliero, PhD; Steve Shapiro, PhD; Molly Eldridge, LICSW; Liza Greville, LCSW
Undoing Disempowerment: Cultivating Agency in AEDP - Eileen Russell, PhD
AEDP Essential Skills 1: Module 4 - The Processing of Core Affective Experience - Karen Pando-Mars, MFT (Experiential Assistant)
“HOT” Topics in AEDP - Diana Fosha, PhD, Kari Gleiser, PhD, Ben Medley, LCSW with Molly Eldridge, LICSW
Navigating AEDP’s Experiential-Attachment Work in the Context of Trauma, Dissociation and Multiplicity - Kari Gleiser, PhD
The Therapist as Organizing Other: Regulating and building self-structure in dysregulated clients through an AEDP Lens - Jennifer Edlin, MFT
Healing Relational Trauma: Sensitivity and Blind Spots Across Patterns of Attachment - Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Fine-tuning AEDP Experiential Interventions in Interpersonal and Intrapsychic Contexts: Growing your AEDP Edges as You Help Your Client’s Grow Theirs - Benjamin Lipton, LCSW
AEDP Essential Skills 1 - Jerry Lamagna, LCSW; Kate Halliday, LCSW; Ben Medley, LCSW; Ronald J Frederick, PhD
Transforming Resistance - Steve Shapiro, PhD
AEDP: Immersion Course - Diana Fosha, PhD
EMDR: EMDR Basic Training - Barb Maiberger, LPC, Maiberger Institute
EMDR: EMDR Intensives - Kelly Smyth-Dent, LCSW & Sadie Smith, LMFT, Scaling Up
AEDP Essential Skills Experiential Assistant
Enneagram: Certified Enneagram Applications Professional Training - - Lynda Roberts & Nan Henson, Enneagram Georgia
Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, Health & Wellbeing Course (100 hours) - Julian Daizan Skinner, Zenways
Mindfulness Meditation: Teacher Training, Insight & Spirituality Course (100 hours) - Julian Daizan Skinner, Zenways
Breakthrough to Zen Retreat 2023 - Julian Daizan Skinner, Zenways
Breakthrough to Zen Retreat 2024 - Julian Daizan Skinner, Zenways & Matt Shinkai Kane, Blue Cliff Zen Center
AEDP Individual Supervision - Molly Eldridge, LCSW; Liza Greville, LCSW
AEDP Group Supervision - Jennifer Edlin, MFT, JD; Kate Halliday, LCSW
Chestnut Hill College - Master’s Certificate in Clinical Counseling
The George Washington University - Master’s of Education & Human Development, School Counseling
American University - Bachelor’s of Arts in Communication: Public Communication, Theater Minor