You don’t have to keep carrying everything on your own
I’m Stephanie Schaefer, a licensed psychologist in Oregon and founder of OtterWell Mental Health, LLC. I help over-responsible adults navigate anxiety, burnout, people-pleasing, and life transitions without losing themselves in the process.
When you’re used to being the dependable one, it’s easy to lose sight of how much pressure you’ve been carrying for so long. It can feel impossible to imagine what would happen if you stopped taking care of everything and everyone.
Over time, anxiety, burnout, and feeling responsible for everything can leave you feeling emotionally depleted, resentful, disconnected from yourself, and unsure how much longer you can keep all the plates spinning.
My Approach
In our work together, therapy is a space where you don’t have to perform, hold it all together, or pretend things feel more manageable than they actually are. Sessions tend to move between understanding patterns in your life and gently experimenting with new ways of responding to stress, guilt, and pressure.
My approach is warm, collaborative, and honest, balancing insight with practical tools that fit your actual life–not a rigid or one-size-fits-all version of what therapy “should” look like.
My style is informed by evidence-based approaches, including CBT and DBT, while staying flexible and tailored to your specific needs and goals.
Together, we’ll explore the patterns that keep you stuck in over-functioning, anxiety, guilt, and exhaustion while building healthier ways to care for yourself without guilt.
You don’t have to have it all together here
You’ve probably already tried self-care and strategies that made sense in theory but didn’t fully fit your real life. In our work together, we focus on realistic, sustainable shifts that fit your actual life–not performative self-care or one-size-fits-all advice.
Anxiety, burnout, people-pleasing, and life transitions don’t discriminate. I’ve worked with clients from diverse backgrounds, from college students to healthcare executives, and I’ve consistently seen how pressure, responsibility, and high expectations can quietly wear people down over time.
While the details may differ depending on your role, identity, or life circumstances, the underlying pattern is often the same: the grip of anxiety, perfectionism, and over-functioning is hard to step out of, even when you know it’s no longer working for you. I approach this work with empathy, flexibility, creativity, and nonjudgment. Together, we’ll create an approach that feels realistic for your life and relationships.
What it’s like to work with me
Clients often tell me that they immediately felt accepted and not judged in our work together. You don’t have to earn support here. You don’t have to prove your stress is “big enough” or justify why something feels hard in order to be taken seriously.
Therapy becomes a space where you can be honest about what’s really happening beneath the surface while also building practical ways to respond differently to anxiety, stress, responsibility, and pressure in your daily life.
I work with:
Training & Licensure
- Doctor of Psychology. (Psy.D.) in Clinical Psychology, School of Graduate Psychology at Pacific University, 2011
- Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology, School of Graduate Psychology at Pacific University, 2006
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Positive Psychology
OtterWell Mental Health LLC
Therapy for adults ready for more than survival mode
OtterWell Mental Health LLC was founded from the belief that people need more than just surviving the day to truly feel well. Many adults are used to living in constant responsibility, pressure, and over-functioning for so long that they lose touch with rest, flexibility, and joy.
The name OtterWell was inspired by river otters–adaptable animals known for their resilience, curiosity, and playfulness. Even while navigating changing environments, otters still make space for curiosity, connection, and restoration.