Lauren Smith, Post Doctoral Pre-licensed Clinician 

Lauren Smith is a pre-licensed clinician with broad experience providing individual, family, and group therapy across the lifespan. She has worked in a range of clinical settings—including outpatient community mental health, private practice, partial hospitalization programs, and medical and psychiatric inpatient units—bringing both depth and flexibility to her work. Lauren earned her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Wheaton College in 2020.

Lauren specializes in supporting individuals navigating childhood and complex trauma, attachment and relational concerns, dissociation, stage of life concerns, spiritual/religious trauma, and experiences of deconstruction and reconstruction, as well as racialized trauma and identity development related to race, gender, and sexuality. She is passionate about helping clients make sense of their experiences, strengthen relationships, and move toward a greater sense of integration and self-understanding.

Before beginning her graduate studies, Lauren served as a K–5 special education teacher and led the Special Education department in a Title I school district in North Carolina. This work continues to shape her understanding of how systemic inequities impact mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health, and informs her anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, and relational approach to care. She integrates relational psychodynamic therapy with a culturally responsive, strengths-based lens.

In her work with children, Lauren is trained in Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) Therapy, non-directive play therapy, and is certified in infant mental health. When working with children ages 0–5, she incorporates Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) to support secure attachment and strengthen caregiver-child relationships.

Lauren’s therapeutic style is collaborative, warm, and client-centered. She believes therapy is most effective when it is co-created, and she invites ongoing feedback to ensure her work remains responsive, affirming, and grounded in each client’s unique experience.

Outside of her clinical work, Lauren enjoys tending to her ever-growing houseplant collection and community of pet jumping spiders, hunting for the best thrift finds, exploring new creative hobbies, curling up with her cats and a good book, and spending time outdoors with her daughter and husband.

Lauren can be reached at
(630)-653-2300