Amanda Carriker

Hi, I’m Amanda. If you’ve ever wondered, “Why is this so hard when I love my kids this much?”...you’re not alone. You’re not doing it wrong. I’ve spent over a decade working as a trauma therapist, primarily with kids and teens navigating complex trauma, and supporting the adults trying to care for them. I’ve sat in the hard moments...big behaviors, shutdowns, anger, fear—and helped make sense of what’s really going on underneath. And then, becoming a parent myself shifted everything. Because it’s one thing to understand regulation, attachment, and trauma in theory. It’s another thing entirely to try to stay calm when your own nervous system is lit up, your kid is melting down, and suddenly your past feels a little closer than you expected. Parenting has a way of exposing what we were never taught: how to regulate, how to repair, how to hold boundaries without losing connection. It can bring up grief, confusion, guilt, and a quiet question a lot of people carry: “Why didn’t anyone show me how to do this?” That’s the work I care about most now. I work with adults, especially caregivers, who are trying to break cycles, understand their children more deeply, and reconnect with themselves in the process. Whether you're navigating big behaviors, feeling overwhelmed, or just trying to figure out who you are in the middle of raising tiny (or not so tiny) humans, we (you and I) make space for all of it. I won’t pretend to have all the answers, but I will sit in the suck with you. I’ll help you make sense of what feels messy, and we’ll trudge through it together, at your pace, in a way that actually fits your real life. My approach isn’t sterile or one-size-fits-all. Therapy with me looks like honest conversations, curiosity over judgment, and a belief that you already have a lot of what you need. We just slow things down enough to access it. We might cuss a little, laugh when it feels right, cry when it doesn’t, and talk about the things that don’t usually get said out loud. Alongside my private practice, I work full-time in a school setting, and I’m raising neurodivergent kids of my own, so I get how real-life this all is. The logistics, the emotions, the constant balancing act. You don’t have to have it all figured out to start.