Welcome to my therapy practice!
Meet Dr. Amy E. Duffy
Ph.D. LCMHCS NCC CCTP, PLLC
● Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Supervisor (NC)
● Licensed Professional Counselor (Washington, D.C.)
● Nationally Certified Counselor
● Certified Clinical Trauma Professional
● Certified in Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
● Consultant in Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
● Certified in Equine Assisted Psychotherapy
You are allowed to know yourself.
You are allowed to take up space.
You are allowed to change.
And you are allowed to use your voice.
Therapy for women who are ready to know themselves more fully.
I work with women who are navigating the complicated, sometimes disorienting experience of becoming more fully themselves. For many women, the question is not simply “What is wrong with me?” It is often something much deeper: “Who am I beneath everything I have been told I should be?” Our mental health does not develop in isolation. We are shaped by our families, relationships, communities, cultures, workplaces, institutions, and the expectations placed upon our bodies and our lives. Women, in particular, are often asked to carry enormous emotional, relational, and caregiving responsibilities while simultaneously navigating systems that can diminish their voices, choices, bodies, sexuality, and sense of self.
I believe therapy should make room for all of that.
My work with women centers on the places where identity, relationships, systems, body, sexuality, life transitions, and mental health intersect. I work with women navigating major life-stage transitions; changes in relationships and family roles; parenting; sexuality and intimacy; questions of confidence and identity; complicated relationships with food and body; interpersonal boundaries; and the experience of finding—or finding again—their own voice.
Sometimes therapy is about learning to hear that voice.
Sometimes it is about trusting it.
And sometimes it is about becoming willing to use it fiercely.
I also believe there is something powerful about meeting yourself—perhaps for the first time—outside of the roles, expectations, relationships, and survival strategies that have shaped you. Therapy can become a place to ask: What do I actually want? What do I believe? What feels like mine? What have I been carrying that was never mine to carry? What does it mean to live in alignment with myself?
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
Somatic
Experiencing (SE)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) - Parts Work
Brainspotting
Biofeedback
Trauma Informed Therapeutic Yoga
Sex
Therapy
Psychoanalytic
A mind-body approach
I understand mental health as both psychological and embodied. Our experiences are processed not only through our thoughts and narratives, but through our nervous systems, bodies, relationships, memories, and patterns of connection.
The mind and body are not separate.
Our bodies often communicate what our conscious minds have not yet found words for. Experiences of stress, trauma, disconnection, anxiety, shame, relational insecurity, and overwhelm can become embodied patterns. Likewise, developing greater awareness of the body can become an important pathway toward understanding ourselves, regulating our nervous systems, reconnecting with our needs, and creating meaningful change. My work integrates attention to the mind-body connection, nervous system, human neurobiology, relational patterns, and the ways our experiences become encoded and expressed through both mind and body.
My specialty: Trauma and the experiences that shape us
Trauma is a central area of my clinical work, with particular specialization in gender-based violence, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and narcissistic abuse. I work with women who have experienced violations of trust, autonomy, safety, boundaries, or bodily integrity—and with women who are trying to understand themselves after relationships or experiences that changed how they see themselves and the world. Trauma can affect far more than our memories. It can influence relationships, sexuality, confidence, boundaries, body image, eating, emotional regulation, self-trust, and our sense of safety within our own bodies.
Healing, therefore, is not simply about moving past what happened. It can be about reclaiming yourself after what happened. That may mean learning to recognize your needs, establish boundaries, tolerate your own emotions, reconnect with your body, trust your instincts, develop a different relationship with yourself, or understand why certain patterns developed in the first place.
A feminist and relational perspective
My primary theoretical orientation is feminist theory. At its heart, feminist therapy asks us to consider the relationship between a person's internal experience and the social, cultural, relational, and political contexts in which that person lives. Rather than viewing distress solely as an individual problem, feminist therapy considers the systems and power structures that may contribute to it.
Your lived experience matters.
Your context matters.
The messages you received about your body, sexuality, relationships, worth, and role in the world matter.
And the ways you have adapted to those experiences matter.
I also draw from the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC), psychoanalytic and somatic approaches. Together, these perspectives allow us to explore both the internal world and the larger world in which you live—including culture, gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, family systems, relationships, and other intersecting aspects of identity and experience.
I recognize that no woman experiences womanhood in exactly the same way. Intersectionality matters. Our identities and social locations intersect in ways that shape how we experience our bodies, relationships, opportunities, safety, power, belonging, and mental health.
Therapy should have room for that complexity.
You do not have to become someone else to heal.
My approach is warm, collaborative, direct, and deeply affirming. I am not interested in helping you become a more acceptable version of yourself. I am interested in helping you understand yourself more deeply so that you can make choices that are genuinely your own. There may be parts of you that have been silenced, over-functioning, disconnected, accommodating, protecting, performing, or simply trying to survive. Those parts deserve curiosity rather than judgment. Therapy can be a place to slow down enough to listen to yourself.
To understand your patterns without shaming yourself for having them. To recognize what belongs to you—and what does not. To develop boundaries without abandoning connection.To inhabit your body with greater trust.
To understand your desires. To find your voice. And ultimately, to build a life in which you don't have to continually abandon yourself in order to belong.
You are allowed to know yourself.
You are allowed to take up space.
You are allowed to change.
And you are allowed to use your voice.
Your Wellness Starts Here
Contact Info
Dr. Amy E. Duffy LCMHCS LPC NCC CCTP, PLLC
Phone
Address
919-791-7545
Direct line for Raleigh, NC & Washington, D.C.
903 New Bern Ave, Raleigh NC 27601
Site in Washington, D.C.