Carley Foster, LCPC

Meet Carley

she/her

I’m Carley, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) based in Maryland. I specialize in experiential psychotherapy for adults age 18 and up.

Recovering from trauma, substance use, and eating disorders can feel confusing, frustrating, and sometimes downright exhausting. In my experience, people who come to therapy hoping to work on issues like these tend to be strong feelers, healers, and creatives. They are undertaking a profound journey of growth and transformation—and need an approach that’s outside the box!

As a fellow strong feeler, healer, and creative, I can appreciate the need for therapy to appeal to more than just the brain. Before discovering experiential work, I never felt like talk therapy quite “did it” for me. I’m an Iceberg person (you can read more about that here), and no matter how much I shared, I never saw myself progressing. I was back in a different office with the same problems over and over again. After a few months of personal experiential work, I realized why: while my mind was taking in the information, my body was not on the same page. And my spirit? I barely knew her! Bringing these things closer into alignment had to happen before I saw the changes I had been waiting so long to experience.

Originally from a rural Appalachian community in North Carolina, I feel most at home in bare feet and with mountains on the horizon. As a kid, I would rotate which stuffed animals came to day care with me because I wanted all of them to feel loved and included. While you might think that story makes my choice of career obvious, I didn’t consider becoming a therapist until I was almost finished with college. Around this time, I realized how important it is for everyone, not just my stuffed animals, to feel a sense of belonging and community. Now, helping bring the world just a little closer into connection is at the core of all my therapeutic work.

My introduction to experiential therapy happened at a residential substance use center in Wisconsin, where I completed my Master’s Degree. After watching my supervisor direct a 90 minute modified Psychodrama group, the course of a career I hadn’t even started took an abrupt turn off-road. I wasn’t sure what I had seen, I just knew I had to learn it—immediately! Six weeks post-graduation, I was sitting in my first workshop on using Psychodrama in attachment work. Several years and many hundred hours later, it has still managed to keep me intrigued and inspired.

Roles of High Value

  • Informed Healer

    My therapeutic style has evolved from working in multiple levels of care and with individuals of diverse backgrounds, identities, and needs, including:

    Early and sustained recovery from eating disorders and/or substance use

    Helpers and healers such as nurses, educators, mental health providers, and bodyworkers

    Neurodiversity and LGBTQ+ communities

  • Ambitious Scholar

    I have dedicated over 600 hours to continuing education and supervision since starting my career. I’m most excited about:

    -Quickly approaching eligibility to test for Psychodrama certification

    -Learning from and practicing action methods with some of the field’s greatest innovators and experts

    -Finishing the Intermediate II level of Somatic Experiencing with plans to complete certification

  • Community-Focused Leader

    I have been an active member of the Mid-Atlantic region’s psychodrama community since 2018. Positions I have held include:

    -Various leadership and administrative roles with the Laurel Psychodrama Training Institute

    -Board member of the Mid-Atlantic Collective (MAC)

    -Committee positions in the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama (ASGPP)

Let’s co-create