Abby Thompson
CA Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #94639
I’ve always wanted to connect to people, and find out what makes them tick.
When I was a kid, my grandmother would call me “her little potstirrer.” I loved to provoke and question the people in my world- to find out what was important to them and how they might like to change. I was definitely not willing to just leave the status quo alone, even as a kid. I’ve since grown up, become more thoughtful and responsible- but that underlying drive to incite change and positive growth has never disappeared.
As an undergrad, I was very interested in the healing power of creativity.
I also recognized that healing has to take into account our cultural and embodied experience, leading me to blend these interests into an individualized major at the Gallatin School at New York University. My interest in yoga and exercise led me to explore further what embodied experience can offer to the therapy process. I earned my counseling psychology degree from the California Institute of Integral Studies in the field of Somatic Psychology.
I blend my personal life with my professional, learning as much as I can from clinical education as well as my personal experiences. I enjoy exploring nature and the city with my husband and daughter, meditating, fitness, video games, and reading sci-fi and fantasy.
My pronouns are she/her.
Credentials
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California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, May 2013
Master of Counseling Psychology, Concentration in Somatic Psychology
New York University, New York City, May 2008
Bachelor of Arts, Individualized Studies, Magna Cum Laude
Concentration: Healing and The Creative Process (art therapy, trauma and gender studies)
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My main treatment modality is Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, and I am currently a Level 3 therapist in this modality, working towards full certification.
I also am Level 2 in Assessing and Treating Sex Issues in Psychotherapy, and Level 1 in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.
Year-by-year training information is below.
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Neurodivergent Learning Nook, Neurodivergent Insights, 2024
Assessing and Treating Sex Issues in Psychotherapy, Institute for Relational Intimacy, Level 2, 2024
AEDP Advanced Skills Module, Undoing Aloneness, 2024
AEDP Advanced Skills Module, Befriending the AEDP Triangles: Using AEDP Representational Schemas to Guide Interventions and Harness Positive Neuroplasticity, 2023
Assessing and Treating Sex Issues in Psychotherapy, Institute for Relational Intimacy, 2023
Magnificient 9+1 Affective Change Processes: The Transformational Theory of AEDP, 2023
AEDP Advanced Skills Module, Feeling Felt, Expanding Receptive Affect Capacity, 2023
Maternal Mental Health Certificate, Postpartum Support International, 2022
Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy Essential Skills 1 (granting AEDP Level 2 status), 2021
Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy Immersion (granting AEDP Level 1 status), 2021
Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology Intensive Study Group: The Territory of The Body, 2019-2020
Gottman Couples Counseling Level 1, 2020
Money in the Clinical Dyad Study Group, 2018-2019
The Californication of Psychoanalysis, 2019
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Intensive Training, 2018
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level 1: Affect Dysregulation, Survival Defenses, and Traumatic Memory with Janina Fisher, 2017-2018.
Keeping Our Bodies in the Room Conference Study Group, 2017
Creating Healthy Attachment Styles with Drs. Sue Johnson and Dan Hughes, 2017
Certificate in Yoga Philosophy. California Institute of Integral Studies, 2011.
Embodied Anatomy workshop with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, 2010.
Regulating and Maintaining Connections: Faces, Eyes, Voices and Touch in Relational, Somatic and Developmental Therapies with Dr. Stephen Porges, 2010
200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, 2008
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Appearance on It’s Just A Cookie Podcast: Your Relationship to Food and Your Body is a Microcosm of All of Your Relationships, 2019
Appearance on Radical Advice radio show, 2018.
Thompson, A. (2016). Silence, Privilege and Pain. Psyched in San Francisco.
Thompson, A. (2011). Healing the Western Mind through Yoga. In Swan, L.S. (Ed.), Yoga – Philosophy for Everyone: Bending Mind and Body. Malden, MA: Wiley.