Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristin Sheehan.
Hi Kristin, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My twenties felt full of motion and purpose. I spent weeks working as a child and family therapist on the South Side of Chicago. On weekends, I performed improv comedy, and any free time I devoted to travel. Each facet, in its own way, taught me how to listen and humbly stay open to what unfolds.
At the age of 29, the momentum of my life suddenly stopped when I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2011. I was completely debilitated and disoriented as the life I’d built vanished overnight. I knew intuitively that to find my next chapter, I’d need to look beyond physical causes and conditions and into the emotional and spiritual layers of healing. I was drawn to natural healing practices, including food and herbs, and once I regained my strength, I attended a culinary school in New York City that focuses on health-supportive cooking. For the next seven years, I cooked for people with chronic and terminal illnesses as a personal chef, which deepened my understanding of food as a doorway into healing.
While I loved being a chef, I missed the kind of deep listening that had always been at the center of my work in mental health. Holding space for others, helping them recognize and reshape their patterns, has always felt like my life’s calling. Ever since my first psychology class in high school, I’ve been drawn to understanding myself and others through the lens of human experience.
The bridge between these paths appeared in 2019. A culinary school colleague connected me with a counseling position at a residential eating disorder recovery program in California, and I moved here to begin that new chapter. Later, I provided trauma support for social media content moderators for Facebook, the people who spend their days witnessing the disturbing material they protect the rest of us from. That experience opened my eyes to some of the emotional costs of technology, and the role psychotherapy can play in repair.
Today, I’m an EMDR and Somatic Psychotherapist. Owning a private practice that supports adults living with chronic pain, chronic illness, and the lasting effects of trauma feels like an answered prayer and a homecoming. It is an integration of everything that I’ve lived, studied, and healed. I’m grateful every day to do this work.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road feels smooth when I listen to my intuition and accept opportunities that whisper that soft but distinct internal <i>yes</i>. Managing a private practice is the best example; it’s been smoother than I expected. I’ve dived in and gone with the flow – learning along the way, of course – with no formal business education.
There have been seasons where chronic illness returned with intensity. The symptoms, though, however harsh, open a window for me to nurture a new relationship with my body. I respect, trust, and carefully listen to my body in ways that would not have been possible in perfect physical health. This is not easy. It’s neither what I imagined nor wanted for myself. But it is a gift.
We’ve been impressed with Kristin Sheehan Psychotherapy , but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My private practice is rooted in the belief that healing happens through the body. Because of my own experience of transforming illness into renewal, I specialize in helping clients rediscover a sense of belonging and peace within themselves. I use EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), somatic therapy, depth psychology, and expressive arts to support that reconnection with innate vitality. I can walk with others on this path because I’ve walked it myself.
What sets my work apart is how I integrate both science and spirit. I use evidence-based trauma therapy alongside a respect for our embodied intuition and creativity, natural cycles and seasons, and the nervous system’s natural ability to heal. Many of my clients come to me after years of traditional talk therapy, still sensing there’s something deeper they need to reach.
I’m most proud that my practice has become a space where people feel seen in the full complexity of their experience. I am careful not to pathologize symptoms and sensitivities. They need to be honored as the teachers that are. My work is about helping people recover parts of themselves that may have gone quiet somewhere along the way. I help my clients turn from self-correction toward self-trust, from the belief that they need to fix what’s wrong to discovering what is right.
How do you think about luck?
What I might have once called “good luck”, I now like to see as meaningful alignment that kept me on my life’s right path. “Bad luck,” then, signals misalignment. It’s an invitation to pause, look closer, and shift something.
I just finished reading <i>The Artist’s Way</i> by Julia Cameron, and this passage really stayed with me:
“Is it any wonder we discount answered prayers? We call it coincidence, we call it luck. We call it anything but what it is—the hand of God, the hand of good, activated by our own hand when we act in behalf of our truest dreams, when we commit to our own soul.”
Carl Jung, who’s been a major influence on me and my work, called this synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences that can’t be explained by cause and effect. I experience those coincidences as unignorable repetitions, the little (and sometimes huge) answered prayers, and right-place-right-time openings that guide the way forward. For me, prayer is conversation between the conscious self and something deeper and unseen. And while I don’t believe that life is a game of cash and prizes we’re awarded simply by asking, I have noticed that when I focus on intention, desire, and willingness, the path of my life turns in gorgeously unexpected directions. This extends to my relationships, my health, my business, and more.
When I was a kid, my family told me I was very, very lucky. I could always look at a Kentucky Derby racing form and know who the winning horse would be. I’d find four-leaf clovers in the grass and cash on the sidewalk. As an adult, I’ve come to see that same luck as intuition, a quieter, steadier form of magic that still guides me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kristinsheehan.com
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kristinsheehanlpcc
- Other: www.thecreativeconnections.org
Image Credits
March Bushelle (couch and windowsill photos)
