Nicole Filipe, LCMFT

Nicole Filipe is a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist (LCMFT) in Maryland, District of Columbia and California. She provides counseling services for teens, adults, and pre-marital couples. 

Nicole specializes in helping teens and adults who may have been called “too sensitive,” get overwhelmed easily, and are deep thinkers and feelers. This includes people who often try to do everything perfectly. They try to “do it all.” The world feels like “too much” or not made for them. They don’t feel good enough. This can often lead to anxiety/depression, burnout or a general sense that something’s not working in their life. There’s got to be a better way. 

Nicole is passionate about working with clients ready to figure out what’s getting in the way of feeling content and empowered. Often this looks like replacing “shoulds” with what one wants or needs to do in order to reduce overwhelm and lower anxiety. It also includes listening to the ways the body is telling the story. As a Highly Sensitive Person herself, Nicole’s mission is to help clients lean into their strengths and rediscover a life that includes enough rest, play, and creativity. 

Nicole primarily uses Contemporary Psychoanalytic theory, mindfulness, and Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) to help clients feel more centered, self-aware, and at peace. SE™ is a body/sensation based approach to emotional healing and trauma resolution developed by Peter Levine, PhD. This approach is based on 35 years of observation and study into stress and trauma that draws upon cutting-edge scientific research about how our nervous system responds to threat. 

Together, Nicole and her clients slowly heal any traumas that may be stored in the body and discard old belief systems that no longer work. Nicole believes it is the utmost privilege to walk beside you as you move toward wholeness and healing. 

Nicole received her Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. She earned her Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and International Relations from the University of Southern California. She has completed three Beginning and three Intermediate modules of Somatic Experiencing® Training via the Somatic Experiencing Institute’s program in Silver Spring, MD. She is currently in her Advanced year of the SE™ training program. In addition, Nicole speaks conversational Spanish and Portuguese. 

Nicole invites you to follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dmv_hsp_therapy/

“To make your unknown known—that’s the important thing.” - Georgia O’Keefe