About us!
Therapist & Co-Founder
Michaela Uttley (she/her), MS, LPC, CCTP, NLC-P, EP
Michaela is the co-founder of Whole Hearted Healing. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional with a longstanding passion for equine-assisted therapy. Her early love for horses evolved into a meaningful avenue for healing and personal growth, ultimately shaping her path toward a career in counseling.
Michaela specializes in integrating equine-assisted psychotherapy with traditional counseling methods. She is dual certified as an equine professional and a mental health professional (NLC-P, EP) through Natural Lifemanship. She draws on extensive training in Attachment Theory, EMDR, Internal Family Systems, and Natural Lifemanship to support clients in navigating relational trauma and emotional wounding. She combines all of these uniquely and uses them to support clients who come to her EMDR intensives in Golden, Colorado. Curious about what an EMDR intensive is? See the ‘Equine Therapy & EMDR Intensives’ tab on this site.
Her clinical focus includes the treatment of trauma, PTSD/cPTSD, and eating disorders. Michaela is committed to fostering safe, attuned therapeutic relationships as a foundation for lasting healing and transformation.
Outside of her professional work, Michaela enjoys exploring new music and eateries, writing/reading poetry, and being in the mountains. You are most likely to find her at the horse farm, though! She is also attuned to both human and animal Reiki and offers Reiki sessions as a complementary practice to support overall well-being.
Therapist & Co-Founder
Darby Pistilli (she/her), MS, LPC, CCTP
Darby is the co-founder of Whole Hearted Healing. From the time she was twelve, Darby’s dream was to be a therapist. She found herself searching the internet tirelessly in an attempt to absorb all of the information that she possibly could, never fully knowing her dream would one day come to life.
Several years and life experiences later, she found herself pursuing that dream of being a therapist. Through time, she found the modalities she is most passionate about today: EMDR, attachment theory, internal family systems, and somatic experiencing. Darby’s specialty areas include: trauma, PTSD/cPTSD, eating disorders, addiction, PANS/PANDAS.
In her free time, Darby loves spending her time with her guinea pigs, friends, crafting, and playing her guitar. She also hangs upside down in her free time and is an aerial arts instructor! To learn more about Darby’s work beyond Whole Hearted Healing, you can visit her portfolio website.
Maybe your body has started dictating more of your life than you ever expected it to.
You’re tired of appointments, symptoms, flare-ups, uncertainty, or having to explain over and over again that what you’re experiencing is real. Maybe the people around you mean well, but they don’t quite understand how much energy it takes just to get through an ordinary day. You might be grieving the life you thought you would have, struggling with anxiety about what comes next, or wondering who you are now that your health has changed.
Or maybe there hasn’t been one dramatic event at all; you just know that lately you feel more anxious, more down, more overwhelmed, or less like yourself.
Danica works with adults navigating chronic illness and chronic pain, anxiety, depression, grief, relationship stress, and major life transitions. Her approach is warm, practical, and collaborative. Therapy with Danica is a place where you do not have to minimize what you’re carrying, force yourself to “look on the bright side,” or prove that things are hard enough to deserve support.
Together, you can make space for the grief, frustration, fear, anger, and uncertainty while also helping you reconnect with the parts of your life and identity that still belong to you.
Danica is in network in Pennsylvania with UPMC, Aetna, Highmark BCBS, Cigna, Optum/United Health, and Medicare. Her out of pocket rate is $120/hr. Click the contact tab to book with Danica- she is accepting new clients. You can also read more about Danica on Psychology Today here.
Danica Flinchbaugh (she/her), MA, NCC, LPC
Therapist
Vic Yamasaki (she/they), MS, LAPC
Maybe you’ve gotten really good at reading the room.
You know how to adjust yourself depending on who you’re around, keep the peace, laugh something off, make yourself smaller, or act like something didn’t hurt as much as it did. Other people may see you as capable and self-aware, while internally you’re second-guessing yourself, struggling with anxiety, feeling disconnected from your body, or wondering why certain relationships affect you so deeply.
Maybe your relationship with food or your body takes up more mental space than you want it to. Maybe you’re trying to understand how trauma has shaped the way you relate to yourself and other people. Or maybe you’re navigating sexuality, culture, family expectations, identity, or the exhausting feeling of never quite fitting neatly into one box.
Vic works with clients experiencing trauma, anxiety, depression, body-image concerns, eating-related struggles, identity exploration, and relationship difficulties. As a queer Brazilian therapist, Vic brings a culturally responsive and affirming perspective to therapy and understands that healing does not happen separately from the identities, families, communities, and experiences that shape us.
You do not have to arrive knowing exactly what is “wrong” or what you want to work on. Therapy can start with, “I just know I don’t want to keep feeling like this.”
Vic offers therapy in English and Portuguese and provides a space where you do not have to translate or explain away important parts of who you are before the real work can begin.
Vic is in network with Aetna. Their out of pocket rate is $100/hr. Click the contact tab to book with Vic. They are taking new clients. Read about Vic on Psychology Today here.
Therapist