1:1 Narrative Healing
for Adoptees & Trauma-Impacted Adults
You understand your story.
Your body is still living it.
You’ve done the work. You’ve read the books, sat with therapists, circled the same terrain in a hundred different ways. You can name what happened. You can trace the roots of the wound.
And still, something remains. A tightness that won’t release. The pit in your stomach that won’t go away. A pattern you keep returning to. A version of yourself you can sense but haven’t yet been able to inhabit.
That gap between knowing and living differently, that’s where this work begins.
"Liz took me by the hand, literally, and guided me to a space where I was encouraged to be seen and heard through my writing. I first worked with Liz one on one, then in a small group. The intimate setting lent itself to connection and growth, and I came away with necessary insights about myself and other adoptees."
— Molly M., 1:1 client
Why conventional approaches often fall short
Most adoptees spend years, sometimes decades, in therapy without their adoption ever being named as a source of distress. I know this firsthand. I spent fifteen years in therapy, never once discussing my status as an adoptee as a potential reason for my depression, anxiety, and difficulty feeling at home in my own life.
“By not discussing my adoption and maternal separation, and instead focusing on my fears and anxieties as if I could rationalize them, therapy became a negative feedback loop where nothing was ever going to be resolved. My body was reliving trauma that my brain did not consciously understand."
— Dr. Liz DeBetta, Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal (Brill, 2023)
Cognitive-behavioral approaches are often ineffectual for people with complex, preverbal trauma, not because therapy isn’t valuable, but because adoptee trauma is frequently encoded before language, before memory, before the capacity to make meaning. It lives in the nervous system, not the narrative mind. Talking about it isn’t always enough. The body needs a different kind of witness.
Who finds their way here
Most people who come to 1:1 work with me have already been in my spaces: a retreat, a healing circle, a writing workshop, or a podcast conversation that stopped them mid-commute. Many have seen Un-M-Othered performed live and found themselves at a workshop the very next morning. Something shifted. Something felt true in a way it hadn’t before.
They come when a life transition cracks something open that insight alone can’t close. Sometimes it’s a reunion or a marriage falling apart, a career dissolving, decades of hiding dressed as competence. They reach out the moment they realize they’ve been waiting for their life to start and they’re done waiting.
"Seeing you perform in NYC was life changing. Taking your class the next day started my path to healing."
— J.W.
Who This Work Is For
You feel emotionally or somatically stuck, even after years of therapy or personal development
You understand your adoption or early trauma intellectually, but anxiety, grief, or shutdown persist in your body
You’ve been telling a story about yourself that keeps you small and you’re ready to stop
You sense something lives beneath language, in your nervous system, your breath, your body’s intelligence
You are drawn to writing and meaning-making, and want guidance that doesn’t ask you to mine your pain
You’re ready to move from surviving → understanding → inhabiting your life differently
How this work is different
I am not a therapist. I am a scholar, a performer, a trauma-informed educator, and an adoptee who has done this work in my own body. The Migrating Toward Wholeness™ framework — developed through my doctoral research, piloted through the Rudd Adoption Research Program and published by Brill — integrates narrative, embodiment, and expressive practice not as techniques applied to you, but as a relational space we inhabit together.
We follow what is ready to be witnessed. We move at the speed of your nervous system. Sessions may include reflective and somatic writing, body-based grounding, narrative reframing that honors trauma physiology, and embodied inquiry into what your body has been holding.
After each session, you receive comprehensive notes: summaries, key themes, reflective questions, and writing prompts so nothing is lost and the work continues between meetings. One current client and I are several months in. She has 91 pages (and counting) of her own story, insight, and integration. You will leave with a living document of yourself.
"Liz creates a warm, supportive, and trauma-informed space that helps me not only write the stories I wanted to write but also uncover the stories I needed to write. It’s rare to find adoptee-centered spaces like this, and her program was essential to my learning how to reclaim my narrative and access my creativity."
— Joanne Bagshaw, PhD, LCPC
"The writing workshop was just beautiful. I so admire the grace, compassion and deftness with which you welcomed and guided the group… Wow just wow and a big thank you for welcoming me into that group."
— A.M. Homes, author
"It’s kind of like being able to breathe freely for the first time because I was safe here. Having my thoughts and feelings validated is priceless."
— S.E.
"This has been the safest place I have experienced to express my thoughts and share my story. Every adoptee would benefit from this experience."
— S. Philips
Two pathways, one Relationship
Both pathways are grounded in the same trauma-informed, embodied framework. The difference is where your energy is oriented.
Narrative healing & integration
For those seeking personal healing, identity reclamation, and embodied agency. We work with what your body has been holding: anxiety, grief, hyper-vigilance, shutdown and build the capacity to inhabit your life differently. You are not working toward a product. You are working toward presence, coherence, and self-authorship.
Long-form creative & book development
For those called to write memoir or a sustained creative work without abandoning the body. If you’ve started and stopped, if writing activates overwhelm, dissociation, or self-doubt, this pathway holds both the project and the person making it. Your creative process becomes the somatic container. Integration happens through the work, not after it.
The five Core Principles
Making space to heal — safety, pacing, and nervous-system support
Rewriting the truth — gently dismantling internalized trauma narratives
Expressing the primal wound — giving language to what was preverbal or silenced
Becoming the subject — reclaiming agency, voice, and authorship
Breaking silences — transforming what has been hidden into embodied presence
Investment & structure
All 1:1 work is a sustained commitment. Research on expressive writing shows that regular practice, several times a week, sustained over three months or more, produces significant, measurable benefits to physical and mental health and overall wellbeing. Every program below is built around that evidence. Sessions include comprehensive notes throughout: themes, reflections, and writing prompts delivered after every session, so the practice continues between our meetings. Many clients continue after their initial program, moving to a pace that honors where they are.
6-month Program (most accessible)
Every other week · 12 sessions · built-in integration time between sessions
$825/month × 6 months — $4,950 total
Designed for nervous systems that need integration time between sessions. A gentler pace, the same depth.
Monthly Program (most flexible)
Weekly sessions · cancel with 30 days notice · no long-term commitment
$1,800/month
Higher per-session rate reflects the flexibility of a month-to-month commitment.
3-month Program (best value)
Weekly sessions · 12 sessions · deepest sustained momentum
$4,500 pay in full — save $500
$5,000 two payments of $2,500
The pay-in-full rate offers the lowest per-session investment.
Returning clients
$1,200 for 4 sessions: loyalty rate for clients who have completed a program
If timing or finances are a consideration right now, please bring that to your connection call.
The right time matters and I want to support you in getting there.
Begin with a connection call
All 1:1 work begins with a free 30-minute connection call — a grounded conversation to explore fit, readiness, and intention. You don’t need to arrive with the right language. You don’t need to perform clarity. We start where you are.
"I’m 50 years old, adopted domestically at 9 weeks in 1973. This was the first time in my life I’ve been in a public space where I could be seen, understood, and fully myself about my adoption experience. It was life changing in the best possible way."
— Participant, Un-M-Othered live event
You don’t have to stay small to stay safe.
You deserve to be seen. To be heard. To live inside your body and your life with trust.
About Dr. Liz DeBetta
“Thanks to working with you I’m being seen and it feels so good. I don’t have to make myself small.”
Dr. Liz DeBetta is a scholar, performer, trauma-informed educator, and adoptee. She holds a PhD from Union Institute & University and is the author of Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal: Migrating Toward Wholeness (Brill, 2023). It is the only peer-reviewed, published framework for adoptee narrative healing through expressive writing. She is the creator and performer of the award-winning solo show Un-M-Othered, which has been performed nationally and has served as a catalyst for healing for hundreds of adoptees and their families.
Her work sits at the intersection of narrative, somatics, and expressive arts — bringing together rigorous scholarship and the kind of embodied, relational presence that changes lives. She has done this work in her own body, and she brings that knowing into every session.
This is not about “fixing” yourself.
It is about integration, authorship, and reclaiming your body as home.