Lauren Steele, LPC, smiling and seated in a Pittsburgh garden

You already know more about your life than I ever will. My job is to help you trust your own wisdom.

You've talked about it enough

Steele Therapy

Steele Therapy is a private practice in Pittsburgh, PA, grounded in the belief that the relationship between therapist and client is the cornerstone of effective change. I work collaboratively with my clients to find what will be most effective in restoring their sense of safety and connection — to themselves and to the world around them.

I've found that only talking in therapy can leave us feeling unresolved and stuck. I draw on approaches that help process stress responses trapped in the nervous system that talking alone often can't reach. I bring a breadth of experience working with trauma and attachment issues, with particular experience supporting the LGBTQ+ community and those navigating religious trauma and perfectionism. For clients looking to move through stuck points more intensively, I also offer EMDR Intensives — a focused, accelerated format for processing trauma.

NON-VIOLENCE

In traditional therapy, the therapist is positioned as the expert: the one who diagnoses what's wrong with you and prescribes how to fix it. I don't work that way, and I think that model can do real harm. It treats your symptoms as a disease to eliminate. As evidence that something is broken in you – when depression, anxiety, and dissociation are often the most intelligent response or coping mechanisms you have available at the time.

The traditional therapy model assumes there's one "right" way to think, feel, and cope, and that you've failed to meet it. That standard isn't neutral–it comes from a narrow, dominant cultural lens, one that perhaps was never built with your culture, your family, your race, your gender, your sexuality, or what you've survived in mind. I actively work against this systemic harm in how I practice.

You are not a failure because of what you are experiencing, and I won't hand you someone else's template for what mental health is supposed to look like.

Non-Violence

Values

SELF-DIRECTION

ANTI-OPPRESSIVE

SELF-DIRECTION

Values

I work with the idea that you already have the innate capacity to heal yourself. My role is to help you uncover this inner knowing and intelligence by slowing down with what is already there. Psychotherapy is not exempt from the harmful power structures that show up in relationships and the world.

I do not pretend to be the expert on your life or that I hold something you do not yet have. I am aware of the power dynamic that can show up in the room, and I want you to lean into your own power as we collaborate on what you hope to get out of therapy and how to get there.

As a therapist, I am not healing you, but I am offering support, guidance, and connection as you unlock your own capacity to grow, change, and heal.

Self-Direction

NON-VIOLENCE

ANTI-OPPRESSIVE

Values

NON-VIOLENCE

SELF-DIRECTION

Anti-Oppressive

Harmful power structures have impacted all of us, and I am not neutral about injustice. Part of the work in therapy is to understand how these structures have caused harm in your life and story, to examine the context in which your pain occurred.

Another aspect of the work we are doing is exploring how we can disrupt these systems that perpetuate harm. By healing on an individual level, I do believe we can positively impact collective healing. I remain committed to examining my own biases and privilege to create a space and relationship with you where we can move more towards liberation, joy, and equity.

In traditional therapy, the therapist is positioned as the expert: the one who diagnoses what's wrong with you and prescribes how to fix it. I don't work that way, and I think that model can do real harm. It treats your symptoms as a disease to eliminate. As evidence that something is broken in you – when depression, anxiety, and dissociation are often the most intelligent response or coping mechanisms you have available at the time.

The traditional therapy model assumes there's one "right" way to think, feel, and cope, and that you've failed to meet it. That standard isn't neutral–it comes from a narrow, dominant cultural lens, one that perhaps was never built with your culture, your family, your race, your gender, your sexuality, or what you've survived in mind. I actively work against this systemic harm in how I practice.

You are not a failure because of what you are experiencing, and I won't hand you someone else's template for what mental health is supposed to look like.

Non-violence

Values

NON-VIOLENCE

SELF-DIRECTION

ANTI-OPPRESSIVE

Self-Direction

Values

I work with the idea that you already have the innate capacity to heal yourself. My role is to help you uncover this inner knowing and intelligence by slowing down with what is already there. Psychotherapy is not exempt from the harmful power structures that show up in relationships and the world.

I do not pretend to be the expert on your life or that I hold something you do not yet have. I am aware of the power dynamic that can show up in the room, and I want you to lean into your own power as we collaborate on what you hope to get out of therapy and how to get there.

As a therapist, I am not healing you, but I am offering support, guidance, and connection as you unlock your own capacity to grow, change, and heal.

NON-VIOLENCE

SELF-DIRECTION

ANTI-OPPRESSIVE

Values

NON-VIOLENCE

SELF-DIRECTION

ANTI-OPPRESSIVE

Anti-Oppressive

Therapist writing notes at a wooden desk beside a laptop and a glass of water

Healing in
real-time

How do you know it's working? Sometimes there's a single moment: you offer yourself compassion you couldn't access before, or meet a need from childhood that never got met, and something loosens. Other times it’s a subtler transformation. Week after week, you notice you're responding differently to the things that used to send you spiraling.

Clients often describe it as feeling lighter, like they were carrying weight they didn't know was there. But the clearest sign, to me, is what happens outside the therapy room. If nothing in your life is shifting, we look together at what isn't working and change course.

Therapy as collaboration

I do not blame the client or their efforts for their stuckness. Patterns that form in moments of real pain or strong emotion–especially early in life–get wired in below the level of conscious thought, which is why understanding a pattern on its own rarely transforms it. You can see it clearly and still feel it running the show.

What changes these stuck patterns beyond talking about them is a different kind of work, one that includes the body and the felt experience, and when that change happens, it holds. You're not left having to consciously override the old impulse every day. The wiring itself has shifted. The work I do with EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy helps the shift happen at the root, felt in the body, not just at the level of mental understanding.

Lauren Steele working at her laptop behind a vase of orange and red flowers

Lauren Steele, LPC, in a teal cardigan, smiling on a park bench

Clients often describe me as unflappable, compassionate, direct and warm — someone who can hold a lot of space. Part of my work is to help you reclaim your own ability to heal and to go to the hard places within, especially in moments when you're afraid and I'm not. I'll challenge you and I'll hold compassion for you, in whatever balance you need in that moment, and it won't always be the same balance twice. My goal isn't to keep you in therapy forever. I want you to move forward and feel that your life, internally and externally, is different at the end.

When I’m not practicing therapy, I enjoy native gardening, furniture refinishing, and sports-particularly basketball and volleyball. I’m a Lesbian, believing in restorative practices to move towards collective liberation.

Lauren Hogsett Steele IS A Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Pennsylvania

MODALITIES

EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

POPULATIONS SERVED

Lauren Hogsett Steele IS A Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Pennsylvania

Lauren received a Master of Arts in Counseling from Covenant in St. Louis, where she also learned about bringing justice and equity theory into practice in the community. She has spent 7+ years in practice, working from an integrative, trauma-informed lens. She is an EMDRIA (EMDR International Association) Certified Therapist and currently an EMDR Consultant-in-Training. In addition to EMDR credentials, Lauren holds a Level 2 certification in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, as well as an Internal Family Systems (IFS) Trauma Treatment Certificate and a certificate in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy from the Embody Lab.

Lauren is passionate about continuing to learn and apply new science and theory to her practice.

MODALITIES

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

POPULATIONS SERVED

EDUCATION

Lauren Hogsett Steele IS A Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Pennsylvania

EMDR
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
IFS (Internal Family Systems)
Ego State Therapy / parts work
Attachment-based Therapy
Interpersonal Process
Polyvagal Theory
Feminist psychotherapy
Liberation psychology
Mindfulness practices

MODALITIES

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

POPULATIONS SERVED

EDUCATION

Lauren Hogsett Steele IS A Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Pennsylvania

Lauren works with adults 18+ throughout the lifespan. She has particular experience and passion working with the LGBTQ+ community, including issues related to identity, coming out, and navigating relationships and family systems. She also works extensively with clients healing from PTSD and complex trauma, as well as those untangling religious trauma and the impact of high-control or harmful faith systems. Many of the clients she works with come to therapy managing anxiety, depression, and perfectionism — often alongside a deep desire to feel more grounded, connected, and at ease in their own lives.

MODALITIES

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

POPULATIONS SERVED

EDUCATION

Lauren Hogsett Steele IS A Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Pennsylvania

Lauren is a member of the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) and the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute (SPI).