Patricia Sumlin, LMFT

Patricia Sumlin is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) based in Washington with 25 years of clinical experience. She approaches therapy with a blend of insight-oriented and practical methods, drawing on psychodynamic perspectives, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and systems theory to tailor treatment to each person’s needs. Her style is straightforward, honest, and non-judgmental, aimed at helping people build skills for emotion regulation, mindfulness, and greater confidence in everyday life.

Over the course of her career she has worked across diverse settings and populations, including Native American and Native Alaskan communities. Her roles have included creating an outpatient clinic with DBT groups for men and women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, serving as clinical director of a medical behavioral health program focused on chronic illness, providing mental health and substance use services at a homeless shelter, leading a dual-diagnosis residential program for men, delivering trauma-informed treatment across Yupik villages in Alaska, supporting recidivism re-entry programs for individuals from San Quentin and Folsom State Prisons, and offering death and dignity counseling and bereavement support in a hospice setting.

Currently Patricia focuses on supporting people living with depression, anxiety related to trauma histories, recovery from traumatic bonding and narcissistic abuse, and adults on the autism spectrum seeking to understand Asperger's and its impact on relationships. She also provides services for the LGBTQIA community and addresses issues related to neurodiversity such as ADD and ADHD, dyslexia, and the broader challenges of visible and invisible disability. Patricia emphasizes collaboration, respect, and building sustainable skills so clients can move toward greater resiliency, authenticity, and wellbeing. She encourages each person to bring their motivation and commitment to the therapeutic process as tools for meaningful change.