Rachel Richards

I’m Rachel Richards, a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, educator, and founder of Four Winds Therapy. A systemic disruptor by inclination, I’m interested in how we become ourselves, what constrains us, and what becomes possible when we question the stories we’ve inherited about who we are supposed to be. Over more than 30 years in mental health, I’ve worked across children’s services, community care for people living with serious mental illness, psychiatric care coordination, and public service leadership. My background includes nearly a decade in county behavioral health and another in K–12 education. I hold a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, with doctoral coursework in Education focused on leadership, supervision, research, and learning. Working within these systems has shaped both my clinical perspective and my willingness to challenge the conditions under which people are expected to heal. My work brings depth psychology into conversation with humanistic and existential thought, feminist therapy, cultural analysis, and Buddhist psychology. I draw from CBT, DBT, and ACT, alongside a longstanding Vipassana practice and training in the dharma and other healing traditions. I’m interested in the relationship between our inner lives and the worlds we inhabit: how family, culture, power, and belonging shape our suffering, our adaptations, and our sense of possibility. I’m drawn to people who question, think deeply, and want room to examine contradiction. Intelligence and insight can coexist with profound suffering. Understanding a pattern does not necessarily loosen its hold, and being capable does not make someone immune to loneliness, grief, or self-doubt. My clinical interests include trauma, identity, relationships, life transitions, and the search for meaning, particularly where familiar ways of understanding oneself begin to fall apart. The places where spirit and psyche meet are central to my work. My lifelong relationship with folk healing, consciousness exploration, and plant medicine informs decades of supporting people through psychedelic integration and other transformative experiences. This work predates the current wave of commercial training programs. My commitment is to the complexity of these experiences and the lives of the people having them, including what remains difficult, unresolved, or uncertain. I founded Four Winds Therapy to create working conditions consistent with the care we offer. I want therapists to have meaningful training, thoughtful supervision, fair compensation, and lives beyond their work. Having spent decades in human service systems, I question the normalization of overwork, hierarchy, inadequate support, and the gendered expectation that caring for others requires sacrificing oneself. Equity, accountability, and access shape how I lead and what I am building. As an approved clinical supervisor in Washington, I help associates develop their own clinical voice, strengthen their judgment, and examine the assumptions they bring into practice. I value intellectual rigor, experiential knowledge, and the willingness to remain teachable. Chiron’s archetype of the wounded healer speaks to my understanding that our wounds can deepen our capacity to care when we attend to our own healing. Healers also need places to be supported, challenged, and understood. I value the reciprocity of supervision, where teaching and learning move in both directions. Originally from the South and shaped by 25 years in the Pacific Northwest, I find connection and perspective in nature. Across psychotherapy, supervision, and leadership, my work rests on honesty, authenticity, compassion, and respect for our shared humanity. Rachel Richards, LMHC Washington Licensed Mental Health Counselor · LH61242965 Founder, Four Winds Therapy