Ilona Varo, LMFT

Like many, my journey to becoming a therapist was a long and winding road. It began in the entertainment industry working as a publicist for high profile celebrities and brands, followed by a second career in the healing arts doing energy work and therapeutic massage. After deciding to go back to grad school, and finishing my 3000 hours, I am now thriving in my dream career of being a private practice licensed psychotherapist. What’s even cooler is that I’m able to draw upon my past careers to inform my current practice. I truly believe that everything happens for reason and to trust the timing of life.

An interest in the healing professions has always been present for me. I draw on the experiences of my past to inform my work, including a narrative and somatic approach, focusing on an individual’s unique experience, felt sense and meaning making. Being a dancer in my early years, I’m very aware of the importance of body posture, breath work, and movement. How we show up in our bodies has a huge impact on our emotional life.

My individual experiences and areas of interest allowed me to create a unique practice specializing in working with people who struggle with disordered eating, anxiety, and questioning self-worth. I love to work with people who are caught in self-sabotaging behaviors, feel stuck in their lives, feel unable to move forward from past trauma, or struggle with self-actualization. I believe that my empathy, patience and hunger for knowledge in these areas support my clinical practice and allow me to be fully present for my clients.

I specialize in women’s issues, body image, eating disorders, anxiety and trauma. My practice focuses on working with individuals to become more comfortable in their own skin, regain a healthy relationship to food/body image, and create an emotionally intelligent, balanced and thriving life. Through talk therapy, somatic awareness and resource development, client’s become more aware of their physiological experiences as well as the meaning that they attach to them. This awareness creates the opportunity to distance self from the trauma, memory, meaning, and reactivity; and become more resilient toward creating change for the future. I stand for self-acceptance, love and compassionate healing.