Meet Sarah
Therapy begins with understanding, not judgment.
You may be someone who understands a great deal about yourself and still finds that insight alone has not created the change you long for.
You may appear capable and composed while carrying loneliness, anxiety, grief, resentment, or uncertainty underneath. Or you may love someone deeply and feel frightened by the distance that has developed between you.
I believe our most painful patterns usually developed for understandable reasons. Therapy is not about identifying what is wrong with you. It is about slowing down enough to understand what happens inside you and between you and the people who matter most.
I am glad you are here.
I am Sarah Howell, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapist for individuals and couples.
I provide attachment based psychotherapy for adults and couples throughout Missouri through secure telehealth.
I help people navigate:
- Relationship distress and emotional disconnection
- Anxiety, perfectionism, shame, and self criticism
- Grief, loss, and major life transitions
- Betrayal, attachment injuries, and rebuilding trust
- Questions about identity, meaning, belonging, and spirituality
- Painful relationship patterns that leave couples feeling distant, stuck, or alone
My style is warm, engaged, and emotionally focused. I will listen closely, but I will not simply sit back and leave you alone with your story.
I help slow important moments down, notice the emotions and protective responses underneath them, and create new experiences of connection within the therapy room.
An unexpected path to becoming a therapist.
Psychotherapy is my second career.
Before becoming a therapist, I spent many years working in finance, accounting, consulting, and investment banking. That experience gave me a deep respect for competence, discipline, responsibility, and the complicated ways people can build successful lives while becoming disconnected from parts of themselves.
My transition into clinical social work was not simply a professional change. It was a movement toward work that felt more aligned with who I am and what I value most: emotional honesty, meaningful connection, creativity, healing, and the courage to live differently.
Featured by the University of Missouri
The story of my encore career.
The University of Missouri College of Health Sciences shared the story of my transition from a career in finance to a more relational and creative career in social work and psychotherapy. The feature explores how photography, hospice work, clinical training, and my own process of self discovery helped shape the therapist I am today.
Why Emotionally Focused Therapy?
I was drawn to Emotionally Focused Therapy because I had experienced the difference that safe, attachment based therapy can make.
Later, studying attachment theory helped me understand why the approach felt so deeply resonant.
EFT offered both a rigorous clinical model and a deeply humane understanding of people. We make sense when we understand the relationships, longings, fears, and protective strategies beneath our behavior.
Rather than asking what is wrong with someone, EFT helps us become curious about what happened, what a person learned to do to protect themselves, and what they may still be longing for underneath that protection.
This way of understanding people is not simply a technique I use. It is the foundation of how I approach therapy.
Outside the therapy room, I am a mother, partner, photographer, reader, writer, and lifelong maker of things.
I am drawn to stories, images, books, and ordinary moments that reveal something meaningful about being human.
Photography has taught me to pay attention, to notice what is easily missed, and to remain present with a moment rather than rushing past it. Those same values shape the way I practice therapy.
I also share my life with Penelope, our tiny and mighty Duo Touch Therapy Dog, who may occasionally appear during telehealth sessions.
Penelope is well known at BJC Hospice’s Evelyn’s House, where she brings comfort and joy to hospice patients, their families, and staff. Our hospice work has deepened my understanding of grief, caregiving, anticipatory loss, and the importance of compassionate presence during life’s most vulnerable transitions.
You do not have to navigate the storm alone.
“Every relationship has storms.
What matters is how we sail through them.”- Dr. Sue Johnson
Whether you are trying to understand yourself more deeply, find your way through grief or transition, or reconnect with someone you love, therapy can offer a place to slow down and begin finding a different way forward.