Krister Temme

Life presents challenges that our existing ways of coping don’t always prepare us for. Anxiety, depression, grief, difficult relationships, personality patterns, and major life transitions can leave us feeling stuck, even when we understand intellectually what’s happening.

I work with adults across a broad range of concerns, including longstanding or complicated difficulties. Treatment may involve developing practical skills, exploring emotions and relationships, reconsidering patterns learned earlier in life, or working through experiences that continue to shape the present.

The aim isn’t simply to understand why something is happening, but to help you experience meaningful improvement.

Trauma and Dissociation

Trauma can affect far more than memories of difficult events. It may influence emotional regulation, physical responses, relationships, self-understanding, and the ability to feel safe in everyday life. For some people, dissociation becomes an important part of how overwhelming experiences have been managed.

Trauma and dissociation are particular areas of my training and clinical experience. My approach draws substantially on Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, attachment-based and psychodynamic therapies, and other trauma-focused methods. Rather than assuming everyone needs to revisit traumatic experiences immediately, I place considerable importance on stabilization, developing capacity, and working at a pace appropriate to the person.

I also work with complex and longstanding trauma presentations, including dissociative symptoms and disorders. Treatment is individualized, with attention to safety, readiness, and meaningful therapeutic progress.

Relationships can be among the most rewarding and most difficult parts of our lives. When couples become stuck in recurring conflicts, emotional distance, mistrust, or communication patterns that never seem to resolve, good intentions alone may not be enough to change things.

My approach combines research-informed relationship interventions, including training in the Gottman Method, with attention to each partner’s emotional experience, relational history, and contribution to the patterns between them.

Couples therapy is active work. We may identify recurring patterns, practice different ways of communicating, address injuries to trust, and develop approaches that help each partner understand and respond to the other more effectively. The goal is not to make a couple dependent on therapy, but to help them build the capacities they need to sustain a healthier relationship beyond it.

Children and teenagers experience many of the same emotional difficulties adults do, but they encounter them with developing abilities to understand, regulate, and communicate their experiences. Their difficulties also unfold within families, schools, and relationships that can significantly influence how treatment works.

As a Certified Play Therapist, I use developmentally appropriate approaches including play therapy, sandplay, experiential work, and conventional psychotherapy when suitable. With adolescents, I adapt the balance between conversation, practical strategies, and experiential methods to their needs and preferences.

I believe parents and caregivers are essential partners in children’s therapy. Depending on the child’s developmental stage and circumstances, treatment may include parent consultations, relationship-focused interventions, and practical changes at home. My training includes Circle of Security Parenting and other approaches that support the parent-child relationship.

I use integrated family systems models in my work with whole families, where the system of the family is the smarter element to tackle and address in people’s lives.

My goal is to help children and families develop healthier ways of responding to difficulties, with progress that extends beyond the therapy room.