Not Your Average

Therapy Practice

My Qualifications at a Glance

🎓 MSW, Master's of Social Work – Louisiana State University

🎓 B.Sc. in Psychology– University of New Hampshire

📍 Registered Clinical Social Work Intern (FL, DC)

✨ Certified in Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)

🌟 Areas of Expertise

  • Anxiety & Burnout

  • Trauma & PTSD

  • High-Functioning Adults & Executives

  • Relationship & Attachment Challenges

  • Identity & Life Transitions

📸 @sitwithsarah

Sarah Shortridge, RCSWI

Registered Clinical Social Work Intern, Trauma & Couples Specialist

Hi, I'm Sarah!

Do you wake up next to someone you love and still feel completely alone? Have you achieved everything you were supposed to and somehow it's never been enough? Are you exhausted in a way that's hard to explain to people who only see the outside.

Because on the outside, everything looks fine.

I didn't grow up with a safety net. I built everything I have from scratch, and I know exactly what it costs. I spent years in business development and leadership before I became a therapist, and I know what high-performance environments do to people. I know the particular kind of stress that comes with being capable. How it gets mistaken for being okay, how it teaches you to push through instead of slow down, and how over time the gap between who you appear to be and how you actually feel quietly becomes its own kind of pain. I lived that gap for a long time before I understood what it was..

That experience is why I do this work. And it's why I'm good at it.

I'm a trauma-informed therapist specializing in anxiety, burnout, relationship challenges, couples work, life transitions, addiction, and identity struggles in high-functioning adults. My approach isn't surface level. I don't just want to help you cope better. I want to help you understand what's actually happening underneath, so you can relate to yourself and your life in a way that actually fits.

I work at the intersection of nervous system regulation, attachment theory, somatic awareness, and deeper insight-oriented therapy. I'm trained in CBT, IFS, Psychodynamic therapy, Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and draw from polyvagal theory and somatic work to help you understand how your body has been holding stress, anxiety, and trauma, often long before your mind caught up. Real change isn't just intellectual. It lives in the body too, and we'll work with all of it.

My style is warm, direct, and deeply relational. I believe healing happens when there is enough safety to finally tell the truth about what you're carrying, what you've been avoiding, and what you actually need. You don't have to perform capability here. You just have to show up.

I've worked with professionals, entrepreneurs, executives, and quietly struggling high achievers navigating anxiety, depression, grief, relational challenges, and major life transitions. Whatever brought you here, I'm not going to be surprised by it. And I'm not going to let you stay stuck in it.

Outside the therapy room, you'll find me on my bike, on a paddleboard, or somewhere in the world I haven't been yet, 38 countries down, with plenty more ahead. Those experiences have given me a deep respect for resilience across cultures and a genuine curiosity about what it means to build a life that actually feels like yours.

If you're ready to move beyond surviving and into something that actually feels like living, I'd love to work with you. Let’s sit with it and work through it!