About

My Approach and credentials

Rachel Ban sitting on a stone wall in the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, USA. There's trees behind her. She's smiling and wearing a red shirt with a grey sweater.

Find joy in life – and love – again.

I’m here to help you cultivate a healthy relationship with yourself and with your partner.

Whether you’re a couple working to reconnect, or an individual working to heal and grow, it can be exhausting to keep hitting the same walls over and over again, no matter what you try. It can feel like nothing is going to change, and you just have to accept things the way they are. But something is keeping a fire under you to keep trying to find meaningful, sustained change – and I’m glad you’re here.

In spite of being exceptionally resourceful, thoughtful, and hard working, my clients come to me because they are stuck in cyclical habits, feelings, and defenses. They feel stressed, anxious, depressed, or just not their best selves in the world.

The places you get stuck in aren’t coincidental – I can help you figure out why you so often get hung up there, and what to do about it.

I provide counseling that helps couples and individuals feel more clear in their decisions, stronger in their sense of self, and more skillful in handling the hardest parts of their relationships. My goal is to center your strengths and wellness. My greatest hope is that counseling will be so productive that you won’t need me any more!

My Approach

I show up relationally for my clients which means that I join you as an ally and believe deeply in you, no matter how stuck or uncertain you may feel. Between your strengths and my support, we can co-create the conditions for getting you the relief you’re looking for. I focus on counseling that centers attachment, your strengths, and your emotional and physical experience as the grounding forces for change.

With a Masters of Social Work and a BA in Psychology and Neuroscience, I bring over two decades of experience. Whether I’m working with couples or providing individual counseling, I utilize evidenced-based, experiential and state-dependent modalities.

Credentials

Education & Licensure

BA in Psychology and Neuroscience from Smith College
MSW from University of Southern California
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker

Training & Certifications

Gottman Method Couples Therapy – Level II
The Pragmatic Experiential Method for Improving Relationships (trained with Brent Atkinson)
The Psychobiological Model to Couple Therapy (trained with Stan Tatkin)
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy – Level II
Expert ADHD & Marriage Consultant (trained with Melissa Orlov)
Out of Control Sexual Behavior (trained by Doug Braun Harvey)
Currently training with Terry Real

Couples’ Experience

I focused half of my career — over a decade — to working exclusively with couples full time, which includes training and supervising new couples therapists as the Director of Clinical Services of a couples therapy group practice, and teaching couples therapy at the graduate level. I have been doing couples’ intensives for all of this time, refining my approach to be the most effective and efficient.