About

My name is Peter Sanders and I am a Licensed Psychologist with a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Brigham Young University.  Throughout my life I have felt a strong pull to help others feel valued, have their experiences recognized and seen, and to be a support.  Once I had successfully let go of my dream of being the rare 6-1 unathletic NBA player, I realized that this was what I wanted to do with my life.  Meeting people like you and hearing about their deepest concerns and triumphs, being there when things were toughest has been incredibly meaningful to me.  So many people put emphasis on how hard therapy can be (and it can be), but I also have been able to share beautiful moments with clients as we approach some of their feared emotions and parts of themselves.  

In working with me you will find someone who sees the best in all of the parts of you. You will feel validated but also supported with practical tools to help you work more effectively with your emotions.   I also highly value integrating data into my work, and have survey systems I use to help get information about how well you feel you are progressing, and whether you are finding the things I do helpful.  To me it is more important to know the truth of what is happening, than to pretend like everything is going fine, so I put a lot of emphasis on checking in on how effective interventions are being.  My goal is for you to not need therapy forever!

If you are a psychology buff, then you might like to know the treatment approach I take.  My approach draws heavily from Internal Family Systems, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and humanistic/experiential therapies (Focusing, Emotion-Focused Therapy, and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), and Relational Psychodynamic approaches.  My biggest goal in treatment is to help create a relationship in which emotion can be effectively expressed and heard, while bringing this emotion into session.  I hope to not be taking about emotion, but for you to be experiencing it in session with me there to support and help you to learn new ways of working with it.

In terms of my personal life, I enjoy video games (Japanese Role-Playing Games in particular), beach volleyball, hiking, hanging out with my wife and dog, and I also do some software development.  My dog Rudy will be in most of our sessions (he is really good at keeping things private), so if you want to say hi to him let me know!