The voice behind Untethered to Rooted
Dana Daugherty
Founder, Licensed Psychotherapist, Trauma-Informed Organizational Consultant and Educator, Speaker and Podcast Host
Dana is a trauma-informed and culturally sensitive mental health professional, trained in somatic attachment therapy and clinically certified in anxiety, depression, ADHD, and trauma.
After graduating Dartmouth, Dana worked as a career counselor at an alternative high school, YouthBuild Public Charter School, before pursuing her masters in Counseling Psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College. She then worked as an Outreach Program Coordinator for the New York City Metro’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, increasing accessibility and parity of mental health services. Dana went on to serve as the administrative lead for the integrated behavioral health team at Squirrel Hill Health Center, serving a significant refugee population.
She founded Untethered to Rooted to help individuals and organizations examine how intersecting identities impact interpersonal relationships, heal from workplace and societal trauma, and find their footing in leadership and belonging.
Areas of expertise
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Dana works with people to unpack what it means to have multiple overlapping and intersecting identities—race, gender, neurodiversity, nationality, etc—and explore which ones come out as they interact with different people in different environments.
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Dana helps people create healthy boundaries to prevent work stress from becoming personal stress (and vice-versa!)
She also specializes in how racial stress impacts people at work and school and how high-achievers can unlearn perfectionism and let go of other people’s expectations.
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Dana uses a trauma-informed approach, looking at all the ways trauma impacts both the mind and body. She works with adults dealing with childhood trauma, workplace trauma, racial trauma, gender trauma, and financial trauma.
She also specializes in counseling those in helping professions who encounter firsthand stories of trauma and begin experiencing secondary or vicarious trauma themselves. -
Managers have the difficult job of trying to balance the needs of the organization with the needs of their staff (while not neglecting their own needs!) Especially in high-stress environments, leaders need to be equipped to tend to the wellbeing of their team in a way that is culturally sensitive and trauma-informed.
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Dana helps people experiencing loss learn how to handle the emotions that come up along the grief journey and explore how grief is held in the mind and body.
She works with sudden and expected loss across community, friends, and family (including perinatal) and even helps people unpack the emotions of an impending loss that hasn’t yet happened. -
Dana helps individuals explore their relationships with other people and how they respond to shifts in those relationships.
While she helps individuals work through family, work, friend, and romantic relationships, she doesn’t work with couples or families.
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People like immigrants, refugees, expats, and transracial adoptees have a unique experience of living in between two or more worlds and cultures. Dana brings together her professional training and personal experience with this topic to help people adapt and find a sense of belonging within new communities.
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A lot of Dana’s consulting involves decolonizing work that looks at ways to dismantle Eurocentric power structures and hierarchies in favor of collective models.
When working with clients, she delves into what collective liberation looks like and the effects of systemic oppression on mental health.
Her anti-bias work helps people look at how to minimize the impact of oppression and how to actively fight against discrimination, especially in the workplace.
Continuously expanding expertise
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Columbia University
M.A, Ed.M., Psychological Counseling
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National Alliance on Mental Illness
Former educator
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The Embody Lab
Somatic Attachment Therapist + Mind-Body Coach Course
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Therapy that Liberates
Decolonizing Therapy for Black Folks Course
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Native Wellness Institute
Being Trauma and Healing Informed Course
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Certified Professional Evergreen Certification
Clinical Trauma and Anxiety Treatment Professional & ADHD Clinical Services Provider
A unique perspective
Dana’s social justice oriented and womanist approach is informed by her work with business leaders and entrepreneurs of color, refugees and immigrants, low-income communities, people with severe persistent mental illness, young adults at alternative high schools, survivors of interpersonal violence, formerly incarcerated women, and activists and community leaders.
Her own experience untangling her identity and belonging as a Black woman with ADHD, musician, therapist, entrepreneur, former expat and competitive athlete is central to her coaching and counseling. Dana creates a safe space that recognizes that all the pieces of ourselves and our surroundings are integral to our sense of self.
Land acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge that I am on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Northwest. In particular, I pay respect to the Coast Salish elders, past and present, in particular of the Duwamish People, the first people of Seattle, and Snoqualmie People, a people who are still here, and want to honor with gratitude the land itself. While working virtually, I acknowledge my settler privilege in this city and this business works towards supporting the Duwamish people and all Indigenous people using the wealth and privilege reaped due to it.