Hazal Selçuk, MA, MFA, LMFT

Welcome

If you want help with anxiety, depression or trauma — or if you want to improve your marriage and get effective relationship help — you’re in the right place!


Hazal Selçuk specializes in working with depression or anxiety and trauma healing for individuals. She also specializes in helping couples to communicate and collaborate better, to heal relationship ruptures and to emotionally reconnect with positive feelings and a shared vision.

Hazal’s work with couples and individuals is based on the principle that we all need to be seen, heard, and understood — especially by the ones we love the most — and that we all want to be able to authentically express what is at the heart of our being.

With Hazal’s help, clients find what’s really driving their distress are basic yet unspoken questions like: “do I matter?” “am I valued?” “can I be accepted just as I am?” “can I depend on anyone?” or “what is my real purpose?”

Hazal emphasizes personal awareness and insight which leads to a sense of power, agency, and choice. She has a holistic approach that recognizes the inter-relatedness between body, mind, emotions, culture and nature. Her work facilitates meaningful corrective emotional experiences.

Hazal has extensive specialized training in couples therapy, trauma healing, body-based somatic psychology, expressive arts therapy and drama therapy. She brings warmth, creativity, embodiment and playfulness into the work of healing.

Her approach is informed by neuroscience, attachment theory, and the creative arts — as applied to how individuals relate to themselves — and how intimate partners can function securely and sustain lasting happiness and satisfaction.

With online therapy, you can get support without leaving home.
See more about virtual individual and couples therapy services below.

Get Help

Here are therapy services, self-help books and online programs that Hazal Selçuk offers. All therapy is currently being conducted virtually.


Self-Help Programs for Anxiety and Depression

In her book A Light in the Tunnel — Finding Your Way Through Depression and Anxiety Hazal presents innovative ways to work through anxiety or depression.

Offering a fresh approach to the subject, she integrates somatic and artistic perspectives to work with anxiety or depression as energetic states that can be transformed with creativity and self-expression.

Building on this successful integrative approach, Hazal also produced a 21-Day Program for Anxiety and Depression where you can experience her daily guidance to help you shift out of the stuck states of anxiety or depression.


Couples Therapy and Intensive Marriage Retreats

Hazal has mastered the art of working with couples. Her approach combines attachment theory, neuroscience, personality theory and trauma healing methodologies. She specializes in offering a powerful intensive program that gives couples a fast track to positive transformation.

In working with Hazal, you and your partner get practical, proven tools and principles that enable you to overcome reactive cycles and to maintain happiness and connection in a truly secure-functioning interdependent partnership.

Renew good feelings, emotional reconnection, hopefulness and confidence as a couple. Get effective communication tools and the keys for keeping your relationship solid and authentic. Repair past wounds, strengthen your connection and learn to collaborate well as a team on all matters. Equally important, increase your sense of play, creativity, shared joy and mutual engagement.


Healing Depression, Anxiety and Trauma

Hazal provides help to you that is informed by current somatic approaches — that is based on neuroscience and attachment theory — and that is designed to facilitate deep, positive rewiring in the brain and nervous system.

Work through anxiety or depression, heal past relationship wounds or traumas, and overcome negative beliefs and insecurities. Experience a safe space where curiosity fosters awareness, deep connection, integration, and new choices.

Whether you want to improve inner states and connections within yourself or learn to better connect and communicate with others, Hazal will guide you to expand beyond self-limiting patterns and learn to trust and express your authentic self.


Creative Arts Therapy and Somatic Movement Therapy

As well as being a psychotherapist, Hazal is also a performance artist with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in music, movement, and theater. Combining a broad artistic background with therapy has given Hazal a unique specialization that offers novel ways to help individuals overcome limiting patterns while expanding their self-expression and joyful sense of self.

In the process of integrating her diverse backgrounds, Hazal earned specialized credentials as a Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist (RSME/T), a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT), and a Registered Drama Therapist (RDT).

Artistic expression deepens connection within yourself, to others, and to the world around you. The freedom art gives for expressing feelings creatively helps you to more deeply express yourself as an individual and as a spiritual being. It is transformative. You don’t need to be an artist, just to enjoy some form of art whether it’s music, dance, drawing, poetry or theater.

About Hazal Selçuk

Hazal Selçuk, MA, MFA, LMFT, is a licensed psychotherapist (California LMFT #125015). She works with couples and individuals. Hazal received her Masters (MA) in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, an internationally-recognized therapy training program.

Hazal also received credentials in the following specializations:

  • Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT)
  • Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist (RSME/T)
  • Registered Drama Therapist (RDT)
  • Certified NARM Therapist

In her work with individuals, Hazal brings broad training in the leading trauma healing methods of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP), Somatic Experiencing (SE), and the Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM) for healing developmental trauma and unresolved emotional childhood wounds. She also has deep experience utilizing the healing dimensions of the arts in her approach.

For couples work, in addition to weekly sessions, Hazal also offers a highly effective intensive marriage retreat format. She has extensive training in the leading-edge methodology for couples therapy: a Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT). She also has been trained in other current approaches: Gottman Method Couples Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Developmental Model of Couples Therapy, and Relational Life Therapy (RLT).

Hazal’s clinical background includes having worked at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute (UC San Francisco), at the Center for Empowering Refugees, at the Lomi Psychotherapy Clinic, at the Jewish Free Clinic, at the Mind Therapy Clinic, at San Quentin Prison and at the Mindful Heart Center.


Hazal was born in Paris to a family of artists. She completed the Austrian high school and attended Center for Contemporary Music in Istanbul. She studied musical theater at the State Conservatory of Vienna. She got a BFA from The Boston Conservatory, where she majored in musical theater minoring in movement and dance.

She received an MFA from York University in Toronto, graduating from the theater department having specialized in performing movement theater, playmaking, and teaching movement for actors. She was a singer and solo performer for many years and taught the relationship between art-making and healing.

Her interest in the healing dimension of the arts further led her to study movement-based expressive arts therapy and to graduate from the Tamalpa Institute in California. Her continued dedication to combine the arts with healing led to advanced work and her specialized certifications in expressive arts therapy, somatic movement therapy, and drama therapy, as listed above.

Having lived in five different countries on three continents, Hazal is adept at working with cross-cultural dynamics and issues within individuals and couples. She is fluent in Turkish (native), English, German, has basic skills in French, Portuguese and basic understanding of Spanish, Italian and Dutch. Info about Hazal’s artistic work: https://hazalselcukmusic.com

Testimonials

Here are just some of the messages and testimonials from people who worked with Hazal…

“I met Hazal at the clinic where she worked. I was looking for a therapist with complaints of anxiety and panic attacks. After a year of working with her, I decided to tell my psychiatrist that I no longer needed medication. She patiently helped me understand the sources of my fears. In doing so, she helped me find solid resources that kept me safe. At the end of each session with her, I experienced what peace felt like in my body and soul.”

“Hazal was instrumental to healing our marriage. Her guidance helped both of us get deeply in touch with our core feelings. She had a great healing energy and strong instinct about each of our personalities and needs. Thank you so much for giving us renewed connection in our marriage.”

“I worked with Hazal both in the context of family therapy and as an individual. As a family, we experienced  creative sessions where we could communicate openly with each other. Our children said that they could talk to us more easily after these sessions. Our individual work each time relaxed me physically, mentally, and emotionally, connecting me with aspects of myself that I hadn’t noticed before. On top of the therapy work, Hazal’s cultural diversity has been a very valuable resource for our family.”

“Our intensive with Hazal was amazing. I was skeptical at first, and my partner was actually ready to cancel! But we are both so glad we came because now we’re feeling hopeful again and back in love with each other. And we have learned the tools to stay connected. This has changed how we view each other, and I even experienced a shift in me in how I view myself, which is so positive.”

“My wife and I have tried multiple marriage therapists in our 14 years of marriage. Hazal has been the BEST by far. She was the most intuitive and positive healing therapist I’ve ever encountered in my life. I now feel truly healed from years of hurt, and I now feel like we have real, practical, holistic solutions to use in our day-to-day marriage problems. I highly recommend Hazal.”

“I thought the content of this program was far superior to any book or therapy I’ve ever experienced. Hazal’s calm and empathetic approach and energy created a safe environment for open communication. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity; my wife and I are very optimistic about our future together. Thank you for your wisdom!”

“This intensive program was soul food for our relationship!! From the simple way to understand attachment… to the tools we learned to repair, Hazal gave us infinite hope! I came in mad, hurt and not liking my partner. Doubtful a weekend would change much…. How wrong I was! I see the man I loved and a new person to care for! Thank you for the love medicine.”

“Our intensive proved to be an immensely beautiful experience, which provided very positive tools to repair crucial aspects of our relationship — through a sensible and thorough method. Hazal is an exceptional professional. We would recommend this retreat to any couple that needs guidance.”

“We were looking for ways out of our negative cycle — ways to move toward each other in the face of conflict — and this intensive program gave us those. Hazal’s very professional, calm and welcoming demeanor, comfort and ease with us as couples, all helped me feel comfortable in finding a way through what would otherwise have been tough territory.”

“I was really skeptical about the intensive program with Hazal. However, within the first five minutes, I knew we were in the right place. I now have hope for our marriage, our future, and it’s all because I have the tools and the step-by-step process to repair and prevent upsets. I highly recommend this program to couples that have tried everything and failed.”

“This exceeded all expectations. I didn’t expect to go home with such common sense practical tools to help our relationship. Hazal was amazing! The body of work, put together with a warm style was effective and compelling. I’m so happy to have done this and fully optimistic about our use of the techniques.”

“My wife and I are married 25 years and started couple therapy with Hazal since last year, our marriage has not only been renewed but has changed in significant ways. Hazal has shown us diverse, practical, and simple tools which we use today to elevate our partnership and which have helped us… find a path of understanding, respect, and emotional balance in our relationship.”

“Hazal’s intensive program provided us with tools and resources that restored our relationship. It provided hope to us that we can both be happy and secure with each other. We strongly recommend that any couple that wishes to improve their home life consider working with Hazal..”

“In all honesty, I didn’t know what to expect, and didn’t think our issues could be resolved in just three days. However, this weekend went way above my expectations. Hazal guided us in a very intuitive flow, and we came away with a much better understanding of what is really going on, and we got practical tools to keep working on this. Thank you for your wisdom and guidance!”

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