The practice

Weight, carried where it steadies you.

Ballast started with a complaint you have probably made yourself: that finding a therapist means reading twelve identical websites that say “safe space” and answer nothing. Who will I sit with? What will it cost? What actually happens in there? Silence, gradients, contact forms.

So five of us — colleagues first, friends by attrition — built the practice we kept wishing existed. Real names with real credentials. Fees on the website. A first message you don’t have to compose alone at midnight.

The name is a sailing word: ballast is the weight low in the hull that keeps a boat upright in weather it cannot control. That is the job, as we understand it. Not to stop your weather — to help you carry weight where it steadies you.

The consulting room at dusk — an armchair under a lamp

What we hold ourselves to

Honesty over polish

We would rather tell you our fees, our limits, and our waitlists than perform perfection at you. This website is built the way we practise.

Fit is the treatment

Decades of outcome research agree on one thing: the relationship heals. So we protect fit fanatically — free calls, honest referrals out, no awkwardness about switching.

Slow is the method

Nobody here will rush you toward a breakthrough. The nervous system opens at its own pace, and we take its side.

Money talk is care

Fees, sliding scale, insurance — named plainly, early, without you having to ask. Financial fog is not a neutral thing to leave people in.

The five of us

If you need help right now

More immediate-help resources

I can’t sleep

Tobias Renn

LCSW

he/him

seated

CBT-I · ACT · Trauma-informed

$185 / 50 minutes

Sliding scale from $95

Aetna · Cigna · Optum

Thursday, 9:00am

In-person · Telehealth

tobias-renn

i-cant-sleep

Lying awake doing tomorrow already. Dreading the bed. The maths of 'if I fall asleep now I get five hours.'

We usually start with CBT-I — a structured, surprisingly gentle protocol with the strongest evidence base in sleep. Two weeks of sleep records, then small precise changes. No sleep hygiene lectures.

Most people I see haven’t slept properly in months. We start with your nights, not your childhood.

We keep having the same fight

Marguerite Adeyemi

LMFT

she/her

seated

Emotionally Focused Therapy · Family systems

$195 / 60 minutes

Sliding scale from $105

Optum · Out-of-network superbills

Monday, 6:00pm

In-person

marguerite-adeyemi

we-keep-having-the-same-fight

The same argument wearing different clothes. Distance that arrived slowly and stayed. Talking, but not saying anything.

Couples work here is Emotionally Focused Therapy — finding the softer thing under the fight and helping you both say it. Both of you in the room, nobody the villain.

The fight is rarely about the dishes. I’ll help you both hear what’s underneath it.

I feel numb

Priya Raghunathan

PsyD

she/her

seated

EMDR · Psychodynamic · Somatic

$210 / 50 minutes

Sliding scale from $110

Aetna · Cigna

Tuesday, 4:30pm

In-person · Telehealth

priya-raghunathan

i-feel-numb

Colour turned down. Caring about things in theory. Fine, technically — and far away from your own life.

Numbness usually guards something. We go slowly — psychodynamic work, with somatic ways in when words are not ready. No forcing doors.

Numbness is usually protection, not absence. We’ll go slowly and find out what it’s guarding.

Something happened

Priya Raghunathan

PsyD

she/her

seated

EMDR · Psychodynamic · Somatic

$210 / 50 minutes

Sliding scale from $110

Aetna · Cigna

Tuesday, 4:30pm

In-person · Telehealth

priya-raghunathan

something-happened

A date the year bends around. Startling easily. Telling it like a news report, or not telling it at all.

Trauma work at your pace, with clinicians trained in EMDR and trauma-informed care. You never have to narrate the whole of it for the work to work.

You don’t have to tell me the whole of it on the first day. Or ever, if that isn’t useful to you.

I’m not myself since the baby

Wren Castellanos

LMHC

they/them

headshot

Internal Family Systems · Mindfulness-based

$175 / 50 minutes

Sliding scale from $90

Cigna · Out-of-network superbills

Friday, 11:00am

Telehealth

wren-castellanos

im-not-myself-since-the-baby

Loving the baby and grieving your life. Rage at strange moments. Everyone asking about the baby, nobody asking about you.

Perinatal work with IFS and practical support — naming what is actually happening, without the pastel language. This is more common than anyone says out loud.

This is far more common than anyone tells you. You are not failing at anything.

I don’t know yet

Halima Sørensen

PhD

she/her

none

Psychodynamic · Grief-focused

$220 / 50 minutes

By arrangement

Out-of-network superbills

Wednesday, 1:00pm

In-person · Telehealth

halima-sorensen

i-dont-know-yet

Something is off, and 'off' is as precise as you can get. That is a complete answer.

A free 15-minute call. You do not need a diagnosis to deserve an hour. We will help you find the shape of it together.

That is a perfectly good reason to book a consultation. We can work out the shape of it together.

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