Matthew Sorg, LMHC

Who I am

I'm a gay therapist practicing in Seattle. The clinical work I do is trauma-focused — EMDR, Brainspotting, Flash Technique, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy — held inside an existential-phenomenological orientation.

What that means to my work is that I work slowly, I attend to what's actually showing up rather than to what should show up. I treat the techniques as the form a particular kind of attention takes rather than as the work itself. You can read more about my existential-phenomenological approach.

That gay-therapist part shapes my work in ways both obvious and subtle: how I understand shame, embodiment, the particular weight of performing normalcy, the long aftermath of living edited. It also means I've done my own excavation around identity, desire, and belonging. For queer clients especially, this matters. But it informs how I sit with anyone whose sense of self has required negotiation.

How I came to this work

I came to clinical work through an indirect path — English and film at Reed College, library science at the University of Washington, a decade in information architecture and scholarly publishing — before going back for a BS in Psychology at Washington State University (summa cum laude) and an MA in Existential-Phenomenological Psychology at Seattle University, where the questions I'd been carrying about identity and how people survive difficult conditions found their clinical form.

During and after graduate school, I worked in community mental health — Valley Cities Behavioral Health, Crisis Connections — with adults navigating severe mental illness, complex trauma, addiction, housing instability, and the systemic conditions those things happen inside. That stretch of work keeps my private practice honest. It's harder to overinflate what therapy can do once you've sat with someone whose suffering has a structural cause that no amount of weekly sessions is going to resolve. I now also teach at Seattle University in the Psychology department — Writing for Research in Psychology and Introduction to Counseling at the undergraduate level, plus a master's-level crisis intervention course.

Clients tend to describe my work, when they describe it, in terms more about pace and attention than about technique. Slow enough to feel what's happening, but not stalled. Substantive without being intense for the sake of intensity. The most common reaction I get from someone several months in is that they feel met — meaning, more specifically, that they feel like I'm tracking what's happening for them rather than running them through a treatment plan.

Why "epoché"

In phenomenological philosophy, epoché (eh-poh-KAY) is the practice of suspending assumptions — setting aside what you think you know so you can see what's actually there. Husserl's term. The discipline at the root of the phenomenological tradition, and the discipline at the root of how I try to work.

What that looks like in the room is on my approach page.

Training & credentials

In private practice since 2023. Community mental health and crisis services before that.

Core Credentials:

• Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), Washington State
• Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Colorado
• EMDRIA Certified EMDR Therapist
• EMDRIA Consultant in Training (CIT)
• Professional Certificate in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) — Fluence
• MA, Existential-Phenomenological Psychology, Seattle University
• BS, Psychology, Washington State University, summa cum laude
• MLIS, University of Washington
• BA, English, Reed College
• Teaching Faculty, Seattle University Psychology Department

Trauma Modalities:

• Introduction to Ketamine-Assisted EMDR Therapy (Ketamine Assisted EMDR Therapy Institute)
• Brainspotting — Certified in Brainspotting (Brainspotting Trainings LLC)
• Flash Technique 1 & 2
• Predictive Processing Flash (formerly Four Blinks)

Psychedelic & Consciousness Work:

• Essentials of Psychedelic Therapy (Fluence)
• Journey Clinical Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy Training (didactic, therapeutic protocols, medical foundations, and experiential)

Relational, Somatic & Contextual Approaches:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Intensive (PESI, with Daniel J. Moran & Steven C. Hayes)
• EFCT Externship (ICEEFT)

Crisis Intervention:

• ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training)

For more about my underlying orientation, see approach.