Name: Ashley Huntington
Title: Licensed Professional Counselor
Credentials: MA, LPC
For therapy to be effective in facilitating healing and change, the therapeutic relationship has to be one of immense rapport and trust. My goal is to create an environment where clients can feel genuinely seen and understood, creating the safety needed in order to risk the discomfort and vulnerability therapy requires. I dedicate myself to the practice of curiosity and humility to honor the depth and multifacetedness of each client and their own story.
I love how therapy is unique in that it’s both a form of science and art. Using evidence-based therapy models and interventions, I aim to work with each client to weave those within the fabric of their own life. I respect and tend to the immediate need of managing certain symptoms, while specializing in a comprehensive approach in which I guide clients through the process of understanding, accepting, and integrating their own story. It is often referred to as a story-forward, rather than symptom-backward, approach which works to produce lasting transformation. It is one of the greatest honors of my life to do this work, and few things bring me as much joy as when I witness the beautiful tapestry of the life a client is able to live as a result of the work we do together.
Experience
Ashley graduated with her Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in 2020 with also having completed the necessary degree coursework for the Marriage and Family Therapy specialization. She is now a Licensed Professional Counselor, dually licensed in Alaska and Louisiana. While in graduate school in New Orleans, Ashley worked as a crisis intervention counselor at a local community center that served expecting mothers and young families. She continued this work post-graduation while simultaneously starting her career at a private practice in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There she served a clientele of children, teenagers, adults, couples, and families. Both at the community center and private practice, she also led Relationship Attachment Model (R.A.M.) psychoeducational groups geared towards teenage girls and young women.
Throughout graduate school, Ashley trained in several trauma models, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Story-Informed Trauma Therapy (SITT) (a comprehensive nine-stage model designed for adult survivors of abuse), and Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), which is a childhood trauma model developed to care for the attachment and neurological needs of children in foster care and adoptive families. In 2023, she built upon TBRI’s foundation by completing the year-long Training in Adoption Competency (TAC) program to become an adoption-competent therapist for birth families, adoptive families, and adoptees.
Client Focus
Adults and Couples, as well as Teens, Children, and Families
Types Of Therapy
While Ashley utilizes SITT and TBRI as her foundational therapeutic frameworks, she also heavily incorporates concepts and tools from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and The Gottman Method. Additionally, she completed the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) Certification in 2023, which can be administered to assist the nervous system in restoring itself to fluidity by listening to filtered music that targets the vagus nerve.
Areas Of Focus
More Than Just My Work
“You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.” -Brene Brown
A New Orleans native, I moved to Homer in 2023 with my husband and our labradoodle, and we welcomed our baby boy soon thereafter. We are still learning how to be Alaskan and ever aware of the learning curve (especially when it comes to snow and ice!), but there is so much to love about living here. To name a few, I love how the view from our house looks different every day - and even hour - due to the convergence of light, clouds, and sky color at that point in time. I love how each season carries a unique scent to the air. I love how caring of a community Homer is. Not to mention, living here has also made me appreciate a good shopping trip in the lower 48!
