Meet Jarae Swanstrom, LCPC - Your Trauma Therapist
You don't need someone to hand you the answers. You need someone to help you find your own.
Serving women in Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls, and throughout Idaho.
The Truth About What I Do
I want to be upfront with you about something.
Having a master's degree, years of clinical training, and certifications in EMDR and Brainspotting does not mean I have your life figured out. It doesn't mean I have all the answers. And it doesn't mean my job is to tell you what to do.
My job is something different — and I think it's more powerful.
I'm here to walk alongside you as you begin to find your own voice, trust your own instincts, and come home to yourself. The wisdom you're looking for? It's already inside you. You've just been taught to look for it everywhere else.
That's what we're going to change.
I’ve Been Where You Are
I know what it feels like to carry everyone else's needs while quietly falling apart inside.
For years, I was the woman who never wanted to let anyone down. I said yes when I meant no. I pushed myself to be everything to everyone — and when I inevitably fell short of my own impossible standards, I turned inward with shame and self-criticism.
I controlled what I could — my food, my body, my productivity — because it gave me the illusion of being in control of something. I hid my self-doubt behind perfectionism and kept my struggles to myself because I didn't want to be a burden.
I was exhausted. Burnt out. Disconnected from myself and the people I loved most.
And here's what I know now, looking back: I wasn't failing. I was surviving. Those patterns — the perfectionism, the people-pleasing, the need to hold everything together — they made sense given what I had been through. They were my nervous system's best attempt to keep me safe.
But they were also keeping me stuck. Does any of this sound familiar?
What Changed For Me
Healing didn't come from finding the right plan or the right person to tell me what to do. It came from slowing down and getting curious about what was underneath it all.
I had to learn to reconnect with my body — to listen to it instead of overriding it. I had to face the discomfort I had spent years avoiding. I had to stop letting perfectionism run my life and practice something that felt impossibly hard at first: trusting myself.
As I healed, everything softened. The chaos in my relationships started to settle. The constant hum of anxiety began to quiet. For the first time, I felt at home in myself.
That experience didn't just change my life; it shaped the therapist I became. Because I didn't heal by following someone else's roadmap. I healed by learning to trust my own.
And that's exactly what I want to help you do.
Why I Became a Therapist
Before becoming a therapist, I worked as an exercise physiologist in the fitness industry.
Every day, I sat with women who were struggling, not just with their bodies, but with something much deeper. I watched women push themselves relentlessly, chase impossible standards, and punish themselves when they fell short. Their battles weren't about willpower or discipline. They were about pain that hadn't been processed and needs that had never been met.
I recognized myself in them. And I realized that the kind of help they needed, the kind I needed too, went far beyond exercise programs and nutrition plans. It required going deeper. It required healing at the level of the nervous system, the body, and the stories we carry about who we are and what we deserve.
That realization sent me back to school. And it's why my approach today is so rooted in the body, because that's where I believe real, lasting healing lives.
My Approach To Therapy
Therapy with me is not about me having all the answers or telling you how your life should look.
It's a collaborative space, one where we slow down together, get genuinely curious, and explore what's underneath the patterns that have kept you stuck. I don't come to our sessions with an agenda for your life. I come with training, presence, and a deep belief in your capacity to heal.
I use somatic, body-based approaches because trauma doesn't just live in the mind — it lives in the nervous system. Talking about what happened can only take us so far. To truly move through it, we have to work with the body too.
Together, we will:
Process trauma stored in your nervous system using EMDR and Brainspotting
Build practical nervous system regulation tools you can use in everyday life
Explore the beliefs, patterns, and wounds that have shaped how you move through the world
Create space for you to develop your own voice, set boundaries, and make decisions you actually trust
Work at a pace that feels right for your body — never rushed, never forced
Some sessions will feel like breakthroughs. Some will feel messy and hard. Both are part of the process. And I will be right there with you through all of it.
Who I Work With
I work with women who are done putting themselves last — and are finally ready to understand why they keep doing it.
Women who are high-achieving, deeply caring, and running on empty.
Women who grew up learning that their worth was tied to what they did for others — or how well they performed — and are still living by those rules today.
Women who are exhausted from holding everything together, who struggle to ask for help, who feel deeply alone even when surrounded by people who love them.
Women healing from the effects of people-pleasing, perfectionism, anxiety, emotional eating, and the lasting impact of narcissistic relationships or childhood trauma.
Women who don't need someone to save them — they need someone to believe in them while they save themselves.
If that's you, I'd be honored to work with you.
Credentials & Training
Licensure
1
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) Idaho License #8331208
Education
2
MS in Marriage, Couple & Family Counseling — Walden University
BS in Nutrition & Exercise Physiology — Washington State University
Certifications & Training
3
Certified Brainspotting Practitioner (2025)
EMDR Training — EMDRIA Approved (2021)
Trauma Conscious Yoga Method (2023)
Emotionally Focused Therapy Externship (2022)
ACSM Clinical Exercise Physiologist (2011)
How We Begin
You have spent long enough holding yourself to impossible standards and putting everyone else first. Something underneath all of that is worth understanding.
Mountain River Therapy offers trauma therapy for women in Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls, and throughout Idaho — specializing in Brainspotting and EMDR therapy for high-achieving women, perfectionists, and people-pleasers who are ready to find their way back to themselves.
Schedule a Free Consultation
Fifteen minutes. We talk about what is bringing you to therapy and whether working together feels like the right fit. Schedule here.
Schedule Your First Session
Flexible, expert advice when you need it. Book hourly support across a range of topics—from planning to problem-solving.
Begin The Work
We start where you are, not where you think you should be. At your pace, following your lead, with no agenda except to understand what you are carrying and begin to explore it together.