Sara Riggs (she/they) started her private practice in 2018 and transitioned to include ecotherapy in 2020. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, EcoSomatic therapist, relational practitioner, parent, advocate for rivers and watersheds, child of fiber artists & weavers and conscious community member. Sara was born in the piedmont of NC, where she lives with her family and practices now. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Appalachian State University and then completed her graduate degree in Social Work at North Carolina State University. Sara has been working and volunteering in the mental health field for over sixteen years, from residential eating disorder treatment to community mental health and now in private practice.

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Sara has been learning and practicing somatic and embodied-relational approaches for over a decade. She completed her level 1 certification in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and level 1 & 2 modules with the Embodied Recovery for ED Institute, and is currently training at an advanced skills level with ERED from 2026-2027. She has significant training and experience in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness and Ecotherapy. Other healing modalities Sara integrates in session with clients are the Internal Family Systems model (IFS), The Work that Reconnects, created by the late Joanna Macy, and Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy.

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Sara continues to deepen her relationship with the more-than-human-world, experiencing her own healing and connection practices through time spent with Earth. Through her work as an EcoSomatic/Eco-Relational therapist she has found that:

• Emotions are more deeply felt and held when we’re amongst our more-than-human-kin. 

• Inviting our senses to explore in the forest or nearby water brings us into awareness and presence, slowing down our nervous system and thoughts, and offers our body connection to joy and safety.

• Also that we can mend disconnection, loneliness and honor grief through learning about and holding the land's history, engaging in environmental reciprocity, and being with safe and affirming communities. 

Clients who have engaged in ecotherapy with Sara have noted feeling more calm and present in their bodies and able to access their self, parts, and spaces for healing with more clarity. 

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You and Sara could be a good fit if...

• ​If you're high school aged or older.

• If it's your first time in therapy, wanting to expand therapeutically beyond the mind/cognitive therapy, or looking for complimentary support to your primary therapy.

• If you're seeking healing and resourcing with attachment ruptures & adaptations, compound trauma, nourishment issues and body distress/disconnection, stress and anxiety, reconnection to self and community, sensory exploration & neuro-expansive, chronic pain, transformation and transition, and climate & political grief.

• If you would prefer to meet with a practitioner who enjoys working with LGBTQIA2S+ folx and people of the global majority, and those interested in exploring their gender identities, sexuality and pleasure.

• If you're looking for a practitioner who believes that all bodies are good bodies, and deserve inclusion, care, compassion, and safety. 

• If you're looking for therapy that offers you a deepening, somatic, holistic, compassionate, social justice lensed, sensory resourcing & sensitive, ancestral, decolonizing, connective, outdoors, psychedelic, relational, and trauma sensitive healing experience.

• And if you're looking for LCSWA supervision. Click here to learn more about Sara's values as a Supervisor.