Community Highlights: Meet Sarah Schupack of Sarah Schupack LMFT

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Schupack.

Hi Sarah, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Absolutely. My story begins in Flint, Michigan in the late ’70s, where I was raised in a family of small-business entrepreneurs, humanitarians, musicians, and spiritual seekers. From an early age, I felt deeply connected to people, animals, and the unseen threads that weave us all together. In my childhood you could find me playing tennis, swimming butterfly at our local swim club, singing along to records in my room or snuggling with my cat Lucy.

During adolescence I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. Ultimately I pursued a degree in Business Administration, a choice that offered flexibility and opportunity. It wasn’t until my senior year in college, when I took my first psychology course, that I felt a deeper spark. Though I didn’t pursue graduate school right away, I followed a purposeful path into the corporate world in Chicago during the height of the dot-com boom, gaining valuable work experience, even as I continued to feel the pull toward more soul-centered work.

My 20s were rich with life lessons and a vibrant social life. I worked in marketing and project management and while I was successful by most standards, something essential was missing. I craved more depth, more meaning. I wanted to serve people in a way that felt personal, transformational, customized to each individual. During that time, I began co-leading support groups at my church and had friends who were therapists. Being a part of this relational work awakened something in me. I felt a call, quiet but persistent, to pursue a more heart-centered path. I eventually left my corporate career, moved to Los Angeles, and enrolled full-time in a Master’s program in Marriage and Family Therapy. It felt like a coming home to myself. It also felt like another leaving of home as I ventured to the West Coast leaving behind close friends and family.

Fast forward many years to today. I live and work in Los Angeles, where I’ve built a private practice that integrates the clinical, the somatic, and the spiritual. My days as a therapist are filled with meaningful conversations, quiet breakthroughs, and the sacred work of helping people come home to themselves. I specialize in trauma-informed, body-based therapy to support deep, lasting transformation. Life now feels more aligned, more spacious, and I embrace the capacity to wonder and be alive. I’ve learned to trust the body’s wisdom, to be curious in the not-knowing, to honor stillness, and to walk alongside others with compassion and presence. What once felt like a distant calling is now the rhythm of my everyday life: purposeful, grounded, and guided by something much greater than me.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My journey has been a mix of smooth and rough challenges. The transition from the corporate world into a whole new career required years of study, training and clinical hours spent with the dearest of clients. Some days are very hard being a therapist while others are lighter. To be able to honor the wholeness and humanity of my clients invites me to be in touch with my own human experience, the parts of me and the whole of me. Some days this feels empowering while other days it is heavy. But I wouldn’t trade it in for the world!

One of the hardest patches was about 11 years ago when a chronic medical condition forced me to slow down, re-evaluate and ask new questions about healing, wellness and what I really wanted and needed. At first, I struggled to accept the condition. I remember reading a story by a health coach who called their diagnosis “a gift,” and I couldn’t fathom how that could be true. But years later, I get it. My health challenges invited me into a much deeper conversation with myself and the world. It nudged me to explore healing paths outside of traditional medicine and the healing wisdom within my own body. In this course shift I found new ways of being and therapy approaches that changed everything.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and have a private practice office in Studio City and online for CA residents. Many of my clients come to me after years of insight-based talk therapy that only took them so far. I work with adult individuals, many of whom have experienced childhood trauma, chronic stress, and deep emotional wounding. Many have PTSD, Complex PTSD, and Anxiety Disorders. These clients often arrive feeling stuck, even after years of therapy or knowing a lot about themselves and their upbringing. That’s because trauma lives in the body, the nervous system, and in parts of the brain that talk therapy can’t always access.

My practice focuses on cutting-edge trauma therapy modalities that are designed to reach the places within oneself where the trauma resides. These therapies are experiential, person-centered, non-pathologizing, relational and focus on the past, present and future. I am a Certified Brainspotting Therapist and Consultant and Certified Havening Techniques® Practitioner. Brainspotting therapy allows clients to access and release stored trauma held deep in the brain and body. It honors the deep wisdom within for full healing and emotional regulation. The Havening Techniques® is a psychosensory approach that treats and reshapes traumatically encoded memories and is a tool for emotional regulation that can be used at home. Somatic Therapy helps clients learn to befriend bodily sensations, regulate the nervous system and gently shift fight, flight, and freeze patterns. Parts Work, informed by Internal Family Systems, supports clients in connecting with their inner world, healing wounded parts, reducing inner conflict and unveiling one’s Highest Self.

These methods go beyond symptom management. They are powerful and empowering. They work to find the core origins of wounding and pain and help reduce anxiety, release trauma, and reconnect with their authentic selves. What sets my practice apart is the integration of mind-body therapies grounded in neuroscience, while also honoring the spiritual and emotional dimensions of healing in a safe context of compassionate relational attunement.

I am proud that I stayed the course even when the journey was hard at times. I am proud to be an ambassador of healing and possibility. I am proud to be an ongoing learner and to be taught daily by my profoundly resilient clients. Seeing clients move from feeling stuck to living with greater peace and presence is what inspires me every day.

How do you think about luck?
In hindsight, what looked like bad luck, my health diagnosis, turned out to be a teacher. It has taught me how to tune-in to myself, my voice and my body. It is a gift.

During the COVID pandemic, I was fortunate to be in a profession that could pivot to Telehealth while many businesses suffered or closed entirely. I was able to continue my work and also launched my own private practice. That period of time helped me clarify what truly matters: work that aligns with my values, honors my body’s limits, and supports my clients on a deeper level.

I’ve also had the good fortune of training with many highly competent clinicians as both mentors, employers and colleagues. I am where I am today because of these brilliant souls who shaped me and my path in profound ways. And I’m forever grateful for my family’s love, support and encouragement all these years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sarahschupacklmft.com

Image Credits
Sarah Hasenfus