Ainsley Cullen, AASW
Experienced AASW social worker with somatic focus
About Ainsley
Ainsley Cullen is an AASW social worker with 22 years of professional experience. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, grief, parenting struggles, low self‑esteem and motivation. She also supports those dealing with addiction, relationship and intimacy concerns, and major life changes.
Ainsley works in a way that foregrounds the person's own strengths and story. She combines somatic ideas with talk-based methods to help people notice what their body is doing when they feel stuck.
Background and approach
Sessions aim to be practical and straightforward so people leave with something they can try between appointments. Her approach draws on attachment-based and client-centred techniques to build safety and trust. Cognitive behavioural ideas are used when it helps to change unhelpful thinking and behaviour patterns.
Emotionally-Focused Therapy elements support people working through strong feelings and relationship pain. She also offers clinical hypnotherapy as an option for people who are open to it. That can be useful alongside other methods for motivation, anxiety and habit change.
Ainsley explains options clearly and lets people choose what feels right. People who come to Ainsley often want a calm, down-to-earth counsellor who listens and gives direct tools. She emphasises collaboration and simple experiments to test new ways of coping.
Her aim is to support people as they make changes that matter to their day-to-day life.
How somatic and attachment approaches work online
Ainsley draws on somatic-informed work to help people notice how stress and emotion show up in the body. This often means gentle guidance to become aware of breath, tension and movement alongside talk. It can be useful for anxiety, trauma responses and chronic stress.She also uses attachment-based methods which focus on patterns in close relationships and how they shape feelings and reactions. These ways of working help people understand why certain situations trigger strong emotions and how to build different responses. Client-centred practice underpins sessions by keeping the person's priorities and pace central to each meeting.
Finding the right approach is a shared process. The therapist will discuss options and adapt techniques to what the client prefers and needs. That collaborative exploration means methods can be mixed and adjusted over time as goals become clearer.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat and text-based messaging. These options make it easier to fit therapy around work, family and other commitments. They also allow people to review messages and practice exercises between sessions, making therapy more flexible and accessible.
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Grief
- Parenting issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Hypnotherapy
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English