The art of becoming whole.

Therapy for grief, identity loss, and the life transitions that change who we are, through expressive arts, depth-oriented care, and EMDR.

Life hasn't always gone according to plan.
I don't really believe that's the goal anymore.

Minimalist black and white illustration of a human foot and ankle.

Grief, identity disruption, illness, trauma, and life transitions can fragment a person's inner and outer world. While adversity can shake our foundation, expressive arts therapy offers a powerful pathway to restore coherence, expand capacity, and foster transformation. Creative expression makes space for emotions, memory, and identity to be seen, held, and reshaped, moving clients from survival to possibility.

Sometimes the question isn't what happened to me. It's who am I becoming?

Black and white abstract design resembling three coffee beans

A tessera is a single piece of a mosaic, small on its own, essential to the whole.

Loss, illness, and trauma can fracture the pieces of who we are. Therapy here is the art of gathering those pieces and assembling them into something whole: not the life you had before, but one that holds everything you've lived through and still has room for what comes next. We are not broken by what happened to us. We have the chance to create something new and beautiful from the broken pieces.

Rebuilding the self, piece by piece.

What Brings People Here

silhouette of a woman's face in profile with long hair, set against a black background.

 People come to Tessera in the middle of something, not after they've figured it out.

A woman with black hair and green eyes smiling while sitting on a dark table in a kitchen. She is wearing a white long-sleeve shirt, a blue denim apron, rolled-up jeans, pink shoes, and multiple beaded bracelets. She is holding a paintbrush in her right hand. The background features shelves with jars and cups, a potted plant, and a dark, textured wall.

Tessera Therapy & Wellness is a private practice built around expressive arts therapy, depth-oriented care, EMDR, and sandtray. The relationship comes first here, always. The methods are chosen to fit you, never the other way around.

The practice is led by Loni Fagel, a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, expressive arts therapist, EMDRIA Approved Consultant™, and Registered Sandtray Therapist, with over a decade of experience alongside people in the hardest and most uncertain seasons of their lives.

A person doing yoga on a brown mat in a large, sunny room with an American flag on the wall.

Loni Fagel, MA, MEd, LPCC, RST
EMDRIA Approved Consultant™ · Registered Sandtray Therapist · Graduate psychology educator · Author & international speaker

About Tessera

A ceramic bowl with a bluish glaze and brown bands around the rim, showing some cracks and damage, placed on a white marble surface.

Why I Started Tessera

I built Tessera around a belief that sits at the heart of my work: We are not broken by what happened to us. We have the chance to create something new and beautiful from the broken pieces.

I wanted to create a place where therapy could be more flexible, creative, and personal. A space with room for art, movement, sound, and other ways of making sense of what we have lived through. A place where there can be more time when the work needs it, and care is shaped around you rather than what an insurance company is willing to authorize.

Healing is not always about getting back to who you were before. Often, it is about understanding what happened and what it changed, making room for what was lost, reconnecting with yourself, and figuring out who you are now and what you want to create next.

That is what Tessera was built for.

Ways to Work Together

Therapy

For individuals ages 6 and up, couples, and families across the lifespan.

Intensives

For people who want to go deeper than a weekly hour allows.

Groups

Including grief, medical trauma, hereditary cancer risk and previvorship, and improv.

Wellness Events

Group events centered on wellness topics and open to the wider community.

Life hasn’t always gone according to plan. I don’t really believe that’s the goal anymore.


Sometimes the question is simply: Who am I becoming?

A black background with a white silhouette of tree branches.