Carla Canfield, lcsw
Curiosity has been my constant companion for as long as I can remember — and it has taken me on a meandering path, sometimes sweetly so, sometimes through challenges that broke me open.
Fifteen years in practice. A lifetime of inquiry.
I have been a therapist in private practice for fifteen years, following an earlier life as a social worker and, most formatively, as someone raising a family. But the truest thing I can say about how I arrived here is this: curiosity has been my constant companion for as long as I can remember.
It has taken me on a meandering path — sometimes sweetly so, sometimes through challenges that broke me open in ways I could not have chosen but would not trade. That path led me, slowly and inevitably, to the work I do now.
As I grow older, I find myself feeling less like a fixed and separate "I," and more like an expression of something larger — something unknowable that lives in all of us and animates the world we move through. That sense of participation in something beyond the self is at the heart of everything I offer.
on crossing thresholds
I am not guiding you somewhere I have not been willing to go myself.
This year I turned 65 — and I loved it. I feel more myself than I ever have. To mark the threshold, I spent several nights alone in a remote desert landscape, miles from the nearest person. I went to confront something I had carried for a long time: a fear of being alone, and a fear of being truly visible.
It was not easy. It was also one of the most remarkable experiences of my life — an initiation into what I am coming to understand as elderhood. Not an ending, but a deepening. A coming into.
I tell you this because it is the same territory I hold for you. The fears you carry — of being seen, of being alone, of not knowing what comes next — are ones I know from the inside. I have sat with them in the dark, and I have found my way through. That is what I offer to accompany you toward.
"Not an ending, but a deepening. A coming into."
On elderhood, initiation, and what becomes possible when we stop being afraid of the threshold.
why circles, why now
Now is the time to gather.
Circle practice is a newer direction for me, and it has arrived at exactly the right time — mine, and perhaps yours too. The circle feels like a medicine for this particular moment: for the chaos, the uncertainty, the grief of watching things we thought would last come undone.
Something is ending. Something new is trying to find its way through. Like many of you, I feel called to offer what I can in the midst of that.
I hope this practice helps us find each other. To feel less alone in the unknown. To remember that we are held — by each other, and by something much larger than any of us.
licensed clinical social worker
15 years in private practice
informed by Gestalt Therapy and Buddhist Psychotherapy
soul centered coaching and
circle facilitation
Austin, Tx and Portland, OR in-person and online
Room to know yourself. Room to be truly known.
If something here speaks to you — whether you are drawn to therapy, to coaching, or to the circles — I would be glad to hear from you. We can begin with a simple conversation.