Portland Therapy Center
Luke Colbourn

Luke Colbourn (he/him/his)

Professional Counselor Associate

MA, Professional Counselor Associate

Supervisor: Carly Henderson LPC

I help people navigate their stresses and anxieties in a new way.

Client Status

not accepting clients

Contact

5036949348

Portland, 97212

Email Website

At a Glance

Me

Rate: $125

Provides free initial consultation

Provides telehealth services

Practicing Since: 2020

Languages: English

Services

  • Individual

Insurances Accepted

  • Out of Pocket

My Ideal Client

Does it feel like there's just too much on your plate? Has it felt that way for too long? When chronic stress follows you everywhere sometimes it feels like overwhelming, buzzing anxiety. Other times it can be a heavy weight where everything seems pointless. It's gone on too long and it's time for a change. Therapy can help, and I look forward to helping you find the insight and tools to live at ease.

My Approach to Helping

I offer therapy that draws from the wisdom of the buddhist tradition and evidence based practices (such as CBT). It is both gentle and direct. Together we build a relationship of trust and respect as we explore your feelings and circumstances. The insights we uncover together guide us to the interventions that can help you. By the end of therapy you will have increased your self-awareness and your toolbox for handling whatever life throws at you.

My Personal Beliefs and Interests

I believe part of my role as a therapist is to help my clients uncover their inherent wisdom. Another part is to help alleviate suffering here and now. In both cases, I bring active and deep listening to build an honest and engaged relationship. The insight and awareness practices from the buddhist tradition are an important part of my worldview as a therapist: I am influenced by two decades of meditation practice, participation in retreats, and active study with lineage holders. These experiences have taught me that we are all co-creators of our shared reality, each of us being influenced and influencing others. I value being able to see from my clients' perspective to deeply understand their experience. I also value my years of teaching and outdoor leadership experience, which help me remain pragmatic and solution focused when needed.

Techniques I Use

Specialties

  • Contemplative External link

    Contemplative psychotherapy is based on integrating the wisdom of the buddhist tradition with modern psychology. We emphasize the present moment experience and each client's inherent mental and emotional well-being, and help clients recognize this quality in themselves.

  • Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) External link

    CBT is a potent tool for working with depression, anxiety and trauma. Its focus on the relationship between thoughts, feelings and actions can offer personal insights. Clients build awareness of their 'automatic thoughts' and use this to uncover 'core beliefs'. In these ways it can pair well with mindfulness practices of the buddhist tradition. CBT also offers effective tools for changing behavior

  • Mindfulness-based External link

    Mindfulness-based therapy can help reduce stress by training awareness. Focusing and moving awareness where you want it can help interrupt patterns of thought that lead to anxiety or depression. Mindfulness-based therapy can also go deeper and take that same awareness and point it at our inner world. With time it can reveal truths about ourselves that are transformative, and tune us into the subtle, often unnoticed tendencies in the mind and body.

Issues I Treat

Specialties

  • Personal Growth External link

    Personal growth starts with really understanding where we are, here and now. To make lasting change requires we know what is meaningful, doable and true for ourselves. Sometimes we are trying to grow to get away from a part of ourselves. Sustainable personal growth involves cultivating a friendly, even compassionate relationship with ourselves.

  • PTSD External link

    Trauma can be one event (Trauma) or many smaller events (traumas). It can show up as issues with mood, sleep, relationships, and much more. We each experience and respond to traumas in unique ways. My approach to working with trauma is informed by the lessons from EMDR, somatic experiencing, and mindfulness practices. What's important is working at a pace that meets you where you are at.

  • Anxiety External link

    Anxiety is an expression of a nervous system that expects something bad to happen. For our ancestors, this might have come up briefly when confronted by a predator, and then resolve when they escaped (or didn't). Today, we live with lots of sources of abstract threat (what do my peers think of me? am I doing well enough at work/school?) and more immediate threat (is it safe to go outside my home?). Without tools to help the nervous system calm back down, all these stressors add up quick.

  • Depression External link

    We don't normally think of depression and stress going together, but they can. Depression can be seen as a nervous system pushed past anxiety, shutting down because there is no escape from bad, unwanted, terrible things. These can be real things in your environment, or even thoughts or feelings. Feeling apathetic, uninterested in what used to be fun, and tired all make sense from this perspective. Luckily it is possible to retrain the nervous system to come back from this hopeless place.

Contact Luke

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