Our Story

Over the last decade, Anna and Jamie found themselves hearing the same thematic question from the clients of their private practices, from the students and families of Organizational Tutors, and through peers and parents on the playground: “How can we make our home feel more peaceful, safe, and loving?”

Inspired by this question, Anna and Jamie explored the idea of bringing therapy into client’s homes and piloted a small program. They discovered how swiftly client and therapist could implement change by meeting in the space most relevant and impactful to the client’s day-to-day life, their home. With an awareness of how effective it proved to be to apply the therapeutic work directly in real time, Anna and Jamie formed Dwellness, a multidisciplinary team of clinicians motivated to guide individuals and families towards healing in the home.

Just months after Dwellness launched, the world entered a pandemic that disrupted our lives in ways that we are still collectively navigating how to comprehend. Therapy as an industry was forced to adapt to the need for therapeutic care at a distance. At Dwellness, we implemented a creative response beyond traditional frameworks, while always maintaining the safety of our clients and clinicians and optimal care for our clients as our top priorities: 1. Our clinicians uniquely folded teletherapy into their practice by using the client’s environment as a medium for the healing process, and 2. Recognizing that virtual care isn’t accessible or therapeutically viable for everyone, we trained and supervised the clinicians on our team in adapting therapeutic techniques for the in-person setting that will serve the client best. Examples of what this could look like include:

Processing grief under a redwood in Greenwood Cemetery.
Addressing education anxiety by using items from nature to tackle math problems in Central Park.
Using a five senses grounding technique in a public park to support trauma recovery.
Creating systems in your own home that empower the members of your family unit with co-regulation skills.