A Practice Built Around Thoughtful Care
Founded in the Upper Valley, Hanover CBT brings together scientific rigor, compassion, collaboration, and a commitment to care shaped around each person.
Hanover CBT was founded by Dr. Seoka Salstrom, a clinical psychologist with more than two decades of experience in evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapies.
Seoka’s work is rooted in ACT, a functional-contextual philosophy of science and treatment approach.
After years of clinical work, training, and leadership in nationally recognized CBT programs, including co-founding and co-directing the Chicago CBT Center, Dr. Salstrom relocated to the Upper Valley in 2015.
Inspired by the community, the surrounding landscape, and a desire to expand access to high-quality psychological care, Seoka founded Hanover CBT, a practice grounded in scientific rigor, compassion, and collaboration.
From the beginning, the vision was not only to provide effective treatment, but to build a place where science and human connection could meet to create meaningful and positive change in people’s lives.
Recognizing the Need for Expanded Care
Early in her work in the Upper Valley, Seoka came to appreciate how challenging it can be to find the right kind of support at the right time.
That need was especially visible for children, adolescents, and families, but it reflected a broader problem as well: too many people were struggling to find care that was individualized, flexible and responsive, science-based, and able to hold complexity without becoming impersonal.
Some clients needed extensive research, nuanced clinical judgment, and highly customized care. At the same time, demand for services grew quickly, and a long waitlist made clear how limited existing resources were.
The goal was not simply to offer appointments.
It was to create a practice where people could feel respected, welcomed, witnessed, and safe enough to approach what is difficult with openness, honesty, and self-compassion rather than avoidance or shame.
Today, Hanover CBT aims to be a place people in the Upper Valley and surrounding region can turn to when they need serious, thoughtful psychological support. That includes helping people find the right support when another provider, service, or level of care may be a better fit.
From One Clinician to a Collaborative Team
As the practice developed, something became clear: this work could not, and should not, be done alone. Meeting the needs of the community would require a carefully built team.
What began with Seoka’s clinical vision became a collaborative practice shaped by shared standards, close consultation, and a broader range of expertise.
That growth has been intentional. Over time, Hanover CBT expanded beyond therapy to include psychoeducational and neuropsychological assessments, health psychology, and psychiatry services, so that clients and families could access a broader range of care within one practice.
The aim has never been expansion for its own sake. It has been to make it easier for people to find high-quality support that is coordinated, thoughtful, and easier to navigate.
How That Vision Shapes Care Today
Seoka’s original vision still shapes the practice today. Hanover CBT is grounded in evidence-based care, but it does not reduce people to symptoms, diagnoses, or a one-size-fits-all treatment plan.
Care here is deliberate, collaborative, and shaped around each person in front of us.
That means taking people seriously, drawing from well-supported clinical approaches, and staying responsive to different ages, concerns, and life circumstances. Cognitive behavioral therapies remain central to the practice, understood as a broad family of evidence-based approaches rather than a narrow model of changing thoughts. Hanover CBT’s work is especially shaped by ACT, and by the belief that therapy should help people relate differently to difficulty, build workable skills, and move toward changes that are meaningful, workable, and connected to what matters.
A central part of Seoka’s vision for Hanover CBT was the belief that excellent care depends on the quality of the practice behind it.
Hanover CBT was designed as a collaborative environment where clinicians, assessment specialists, psychiatric providers, and support staff work together with care, professionalism, and shared purpose.
That includes creating a professional home for clinicians. Supported and well-connected providers are better able to offer steady care, stronger collaboration, and better continuity for clients and families.
From hiring to daily consultation, the practice is intentionally shaped to support belonging, growth, thoughtful clinical judgment, and ownership in the culture of care.
Compassion, openness, integrity, authenticity, and inclusiveness are part of that culture. They shape how people are welcomed, how clinicians work together, how decisions are made, and how care is coordinated.
Warmth and kindness are not separate from clinical seriousness here; they are part of the environment that makes good care more possible.
