Ready to stop fighting yourself and start trusting yourself?
Meet Martha Carter, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Somatic Therapist, Certified Pain Reprocessing Therapy Practitioner, & Experienced Eating Disorder And Trauma Therapist in Denver, Colorado with 8 years of experience in mental health.
License: CSW.09929340
Martha Carter is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and somatic trauma therapist in Denver, and online across Colorado.
Martha attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned her Master of Social Work degree. She’s a certified Pain Reprocessing Therapy and Post-Traumatic Growth Somatic Therapy practitioner. She’s worked in all levels of eating disorder treatment as a group and individual therapist, and has 8 years of experience in the mental health field.
She’s passionate about helping over-functioning adults work past hard things, feel ease and satisfaction from the life they’ve worked so hard to build, confidently choose themselves, reduce eating disorder behaviors, get relief from tension and chronic pain, and build a more sustainable lifestyle they can still be proud of.
She supports people with all forms of trauma, including sexual assault, childhood abuse, and complex trauma, as well as eating disorders, chronic pain, and people-pleasing.
“I began supervising Martha during her licensing process. I have been a clinical supervisor for 2 decades, and Martha stood out immediately as a gifted therapist. I could see right away that she brought a brilliance, skillfulness, and clarity to her clinical work that often takes decades to achieve. Along with this giftedness, Martha brings authenticity and warmth to her clinical work — connecting easily with clients. Great therapists stay growing their skills and self-knowledge to support their clients more effectively — and this is a big part of who Martha is as a person and therapist.
For a clients who want a journey of healing, growth, and expansion, they would be deeply benefited by working with Martha.”
-Ruby Jo Walker, LCSW
You’ve spent a lot of your life feeling like you’re somehow too much or not enough.
Maybe you feel things deeply, notice what others miss, pick up on the emotions around you, or need more time and space to process than others seem to understand.
Over time, you may have learned to see your sensitivity, intensity, or different way of experiencing the world as something you needed to fix.
But what if you were never the problem?
Therapy can help you understand yourself with more compassion, reconnect with your strengths, and build a life that works with your unique nervous system instead of against it.
My Approach to Therapy
I use a somatic approach, but what the heck is that?
You may have heard this phrase thrown around the internet quite a bit recently, and it deserves all the hype. Unlike talk therapy, somatic therapy focuses on feeling things instead of solely talking about them. Somatic therapy is unique because it allows us to capitalize on our nervous system’s anatomy to access calm, clarity, and connection. As mammals, the majority of our nervous system communicates from body to brain, not brain to body, meaning it’s more efficient to focus on helping your body feel safe than trying to make your mind feels safe. This is why it’s so hard to think our way out of feeling anxious, and why real change feels so elusive even though you “get” why you react the way you do. Instead of relying on intellectually understanding your patterns, somatic therapy helps you actually feel better.
My approach is also relational at heart.
This is because most of my clients have relational trauma, meaning they have been harmed by relationships, especially emotionally immature and/or abusive parents. Since their wounds are relational, I believe deep healing requires healing within relationships, including the therapeutic relationship.
Whatever struggles you deal with in your life will most certainly show up in therapy. If you have not been truly seen or understood by people in your life, you will feel missed and misunderstood by your therapist. If you struggle to ask for help and are used to doing everything on your own, you will struggle to ask your therapist for help. If you tend to people-please, you will also find yourself trying to please your therapist. This is why we must address these old wounds as they show up in the present between us, too. This is how necessary change happens.
How is therapy with me different?
If you work with me, I won’t just let you gossip and gab to avoid the deeper stuff— I’ll help you build lasting trust in yourself and feel more capable of handling whatever life brings.
I’m not a robotic, blank-slate therapist, and can’t help but be real because I truly care that you get what you want out of our sessions. Friends and past clients say I’m disarming, easy to talk to, direct, and goofy. They also say I’m “probably a witch” due to my strong intuition, which I take as a huge compliment.
I don’t hide my humanness—I’ll laugh, cry, and sit in the hard stuff right alongside you. And because I don’t believe in having all the answers, we’ll explore together what feels most true and supportive for you, so you can carry that clarity and confidence into your life outside therapy.
Let’s Get Personal…
My Story
For as long as I can remember I’ve been curious about people and have felt nourished by providing emotional support to others — I even remember spending my middle school recesses taking care of my bullied peers. I’m naturally a direct communicator, unafraid to address conflict, and for better or for worse, physically unable to be anything but honest and authentic. It’s no surprise I ended up as a therapist!
Though my personality is a good fit for the job, I ultimately I became a therapist because of my own mental health journey. In college, I had severe anxiety and panic attacks, and my mental health was at an all time low. Thanks to my lovely roommate whose dad was a therapist, I realized I didn’t have to push through on my own anymore, and could get help. That’s when I started going to therapy, and this experience is what inspired me to pursue it as a career. Since then, I’ve had many therapists of all kinds, and though my frequency has ebbed and flowed over the years, I’ve continued to prioritize it.
I don’t believe therapy is a magical fix for this world’s systemic issues, but I believe in its power, and have experienced personal transformation through both talk therapy and somatics. I can honestly say there’s nothing more life-giving or satisfying than helping someone grow from their trauma or bearing witness to their resilience. That's why I’ve dedicated my life to helping people like me and you heal.
XOXO,
Martha
Am I the Right Trauma Therapist for You?
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I’m a good fit for someone who likes direct feedback, enjoys profound therapy with a side of humor, and is okay with being interrupted. I work best with people who are genuinely ready to change but just aren’t sure how, and are curious about alternative forms of therapy, like somatics.
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Though I love hearing gossip on reality shows, I’m not much of a talk therapist, so I’m not well-suited for people who are looking for weekly gab sessions. I enjoy guiding deep, transformational work in the mind and body, so I’m the best fit for people who want that too.
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I love to cook, thrift (I prefer true, grimy thrift stores- none of those fancy, overpriced vintage stores!), and travel. Like many Coloradans, I’m happy doing anything outside, but I have a thing for Type B experiences like miserably long backpacking trips.
I’m opinionated, outspoken, and have a boisterous laugh you will be sure to hear within the first few minutes of meeting me.
My Career Path
After earning my Bachelors, I started off my career in a hardcore way, jumping straight into residential eating disorder treatment as a milieu therapist. That job was no joke, but it’s where I discovered what eating disorders do for people with no better place to turn, learned it really isn’t about the food, and found my deep love for therapy. I’m forever in awe of the fierce strength of those clients, and continue to weave their wisdom into my work today.
After a year of working in the eating disorder field, I began my Master of Social Work program where I specialized in addiction, interned at a residential addiction recovery program that dually-functioned as a homeless shelter, and also interned at a behavioral health urgent care seeing clients in mental health crisis. While I learned a lot in these internships, what I really longed for was to be a therapist.
Upon graduating in 2020, I returned to working in eating disorder treatment as a group therapist and eventually individual therapist, and got experience in all levels of eating disorder care, including inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient. In working with eating disorder clients and reflecting on my own disordered eating history, I began to connect the dots of how trauma forces people to manage their loneliness and despair in creative ways, sometimes through food, sometimes through other means like addiction or self-harm.
In 2023, I left the eating disorder field to start my private practice where I focus on helping people heal from trauma, eating disorders, and chronic pain using a somatic approach. After becoming certified in Post-Traumatic Growth Somatic Therapy and Pain Reprocessing Therapy, I can proudly say I’m a trauma and chronic pain specialist, in addition to being an eating disorder expert. I truly love this work, and can’t wait to hear your story, too.
Specialties
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Trauma Therapy
Trauma therapy helps you process painful experiences, deactivate your nervous system, and release patterns that no longer serve you. It creates a safe space to heal, rebuild your sense of self, and move forward with greater confidence.
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Somatic Therapy
Somatic (body-focused) therapy helps by connecting with your body to process emotions and release stored tension. It’s a gentle way to calm your nervous system, build resilience, and create lasting change from within.
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Therapy Immersives
Immersive therapy offers a focused, deep-dive approach to healing, allowing you to address challenges and make meaningful progress in less sessions than weekly therapy. I offer a variety of immersive therapy experiences.
Clinical Experience & Qualifications
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Master of Social Work | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, May 2020
Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Colorado | CSW.09929340
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Pain Reprocessing Therapy
Beyond Fight, Flight, Freeze: The Neurobiology of Fawning and Appeasement
Post-Traumatic Growth Somatic Therapy, All Modules
The Neurobiology of Self-Compassion
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Certified Post-Traumatic Growth practitioner
Certified Pain Reprocessing Therapy practitioner
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I have more than 6 years of experience in eating disorder treatment, including inpatient, residential, PHP, IOP, and outpatient. I’ve also worked at a mental health urgent care and a substance use recovery program.