Some stories need the
earth to hold them.
A farmhouse individual psychotherapy practice, set back from the road. Decades of sitting with the hardest stories a person can carry — slowly, and with steady warmth.
Christine Bott Schmuker
Licensed Professional Counselor
A chair by the window,
and the pasture beyond.
Welcome to the farmhouse. Out the window, horses move across the pasture in their own slow, gentle time, and the cows keep theirs. There is no fluorescent hum here, no rack of anxious magazines — only the land, holding its soft stillness, and a chair that has learned to listen.
Mathews County, Virginia — where the farmland meanders around the Chesapeake Bay. You arrive when you arrive; nothing here is in a hurry.
The land does the first half of the work. It holds a person before a single word is said.
Tended gently
Slow work, with the
hardest stories.
My work is with adults who survived what was never supposed to happen to a child. This is not the work of a single hour, or a tenth session. It is the gentle, patient work of setting down what you have carried for a long time — and the deeper healing of learning, in the body and not only the mind, that it is finally safe to let it rest.
Trauma is not a problem to be solved; it is a story to be heard all the way through, in its own time, by someone who will hold it softly and will not look away.
Healing is not the absence of the wound. It is the moment the wound is finally met with company.
The chair
How I can help
Individual Psychotherapy Services (18 and older)
Every person who finds this page arrives carrying something different, so nothing here is one-size-fits-all. We begin with a gentle conversation — what feels heavy, what you're hoping for — and choose the way forward together, softly and at your own pace.
Approaches I may draw from
No two stories ask for the same tools. I weave together the therapies I'm trained in — gently, and always at your pace — until we find the ones that fit you best.
Psychodynamic Therapy 🌻 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) 🌻 Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) 🌻 Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) 🌻 Somatic Therapies 🌻 Eye Movement Integration (EMI) 🌻 Trauma Therapy 🌻 Crisis Intervention
Stories I often sit with
These are the conditions and experiences I've spent decades alongside. If any of these words name what you've been carrying, you are not too much — and you will be met softly here, never with fear.
Depression 🌻 Mood Disorders (Bipolar Disorder) 🌻 PTSD — Posttraumatic Stress Disorder 🌻 Dissociative Disorders 🌻 Borderline Personality Disorder 🌻 Schizophrenia & Schizoaffective Disorders 🌻 Survivors of Physical, Sexual & Emotional Abuse and Neglect 🌻 Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence & Bullying 🌻 Interpersonal Violence, Date Rape & Self-Harm 🌻 Psychosis
Whatever brings you here, there is a soft chair and a warm welcome waiting.
Hours at the farmhouse
The farmhouse keeps unhurried hours — the door is open when it says it is, and it never closes in a hurry. I see clients Monday through Thursday, with gentle morning and early afternoon hours, from 8:00 in the morning until 3:00.
The farmhouse stays quiet on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays — time for the garden to rest, the pasture to breathe, and the kettle to cool — so the hours we do sit together are never rushed.
Tucked here in Mathews County, I welcome you in person — or by telehealth from anywhere in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
You are welcome here.
Registration lives with the practice portal. Whether you are beginning, or already on this road and looking for a place to continue — the door is open, and the pasture is quiet.
Both links open the same secure portal — the platform routes new and returning clients accordingly.
For additional information or questions, please email christine@sunflowercounselingservices.com.
Weekends are quiet here — the garden rests, the pasture breathes, and the door opens soft again on Monday morning.
Private pay, per session
- 60 minutes$250
- 45 minutes$200
- 30 minutes$120
In network provider for most medical insurances.
Telehealth sessions available from anywhere in the Commonwealth of Virginia.