Emilie Gomart (LCMFT)
My professional training
Before opening my first private practice as a psychotherapist in 2010 in Haarlem (The Netherlands), I trained and worked as an anthropologist, focusing my research on Western medicine and psychiatry. I hold a Master’s degree from Cambridge University (UK) and a PhD from the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (France), both in Medical Anthropology.* My background in anthropology continues to shape my therapeutic approach, especially when working with couples and families navigating different cultural perspectives on family, romance, intimacy, or gender roles.
I was raised and educated in France, then spent 15 years living in the Netherlands, where my life partner and I raised our two children and where I practiced as a certified Core Energetics practitioner (a neo-Reichian, somatic psychotherapeutic approach). I speak French fluently and Dutch passably, and I've had the opportunity to work with many Francophone couples from North America, Africa, and Europe.
In my free time, I love hiking with my partner and our two Boxers, practicing yoga, and—most recently—learning to play the cello.
* My PhD thesis was an ethnographic study of the first French methadone clinic treating opiate addiction. See for example, Gomart & Hennion (1999) : “A Sociology of attachment” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1999.tb03490.x
My Journey Into Psychotherapy
I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, with:
a Masters in Marriage and Family therapy from Virginia Tech.
advanced trainings in couples therapy from both the Washington-Baltimore Center for Emotionally Focused Couple’s Therapy (WBCEFT), and the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (ICP+P).
a certification as a Circle of Security facilitator.
postgraduate training in sex therapy from the University of Michigan and a certification by AASECT*.
training in group therapy at the National Institute for Group Therapy (NGPI) at the Washington School of Psychiatry.
In addition since 2002, I have experienced, practiced, and/or trained in various body-oriented psychotherapeutic approaches in the USA, France, and the Netherlands (such as Pelvic Heart integration and Core Energetics). Each year, I return to Europe to deepen my engagement with somatic approaches that support my work with couples on physical and emotional intimacy.
*American Association of Sex Educators and Therapists