Melissa Lowenstein, MA, AMFT

About 

I am a passionate learner and teacher. Curiosity and wonder are the main drivers of everything I do. Nearly everything I have explored throughout my life and in my therapeutic education and practice—diverse approaches that integrate body, mind, and spirit—has had something to add to the way I approach working with clients. 

I create and hold space where clients can question, move, play, feel, say the unsayable, experience their bodies, hold paradoxes, recognize contexts, find purpose, create, envision, celebrate, grieve, gain practical tools, realize inconvenient truths, practice relating to others differently, and ultimately arrive in the moment—which is, in the end, all we really have. I am wildly in love with the possibilities and potentials of the body, mind, and spirit; of self-exploration and exploration of relationship; and the intersections of past, present, and future.  

I am a parent of two and step-parent to three, all of whom are adults now. The experience of parenting has informed my work as a therapist as much as anything I ever learned in school. 

Approach 

I work with individual adults, families, couples, and groups in the Santa Barbara area. I can work in-person or remotely. 

My greatest strength as a therapist is an ability to meet people where they are, holding this diversity of approaches loosely and feeling into what is most helpful. I use somatic, psychodynamic, attachment-focused, depth-oriented, and cognitive-behavioral tools to help folks recognize, understand, and shift patterns that disrupt their lives and relationships. 

A few other things about my therapeutic approach: 

• I prize positive emotions, play, and laughter as therapeutic tools. 
• I believe in creative expression as essential for mental, spiritual, and somatic well-being. 
• I aim to empower clients by helping them recognize how much they already know,  what their native gifts might be and how they are already growing. 
• I think it is crucial to explore our pasts to understand the why of things we wish to change, but to not get stuck there. Instead, we explore ways to shift and have a new experience of being alive. 

Background

I earned my Master’s degree in psychology from Antioch University in Santa Barbara in 2022 and have been practicing psychotherapy at nonprofit agencies in Santa Barbara (AHA!, the Family Therapy Institute) since 2021. I also hold a Master’s in Education with a specialization in Exercise Physiology from the University of Virginia (1994) and a BA in Theater Arts and Dance from the College of William and Mary in Virginia (1992). 

Since 2011, I have been a group facilitator, administrator, and workshop leader for teens, parents, and educators at AHA!, a Santa Barbara non-profit organization. I have also been certified as a parent coach since 2008 and continue to do that work. 

I have been a dedicated yoga practitioner and teacher for decades. I hold two diplomas in psychological astrology. I am also a creative artist—I have spent countless hours writing nonfiction, poetry, and fiction; creating and taking part in dance and theater performance works; and dabbling in visual art. All of these passions and pursuits deeply inform my therapeutic practice. 

Contact

 

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi,