Therapy and Healing Arts
As a self-proclaimed training junkie, and life-long student, I am constantly learning more and passing that learning on to my clients. I specialize in the treatment of trauma, both shock trauma (PTSD) and complex trauma (CPTSD) and how attachment and environmental failure alters our physiology, our sense of self, and how we relate to others and the world. The practices and modalities listed below are what I offer in an individual therapy setting as well as individual and group Trauma Sensitive Yoga classes and occasionally workshops. You are welcome to browse through my previous workshops and trainings I have offered here Events. In addition to therapeutic services, I also offer clinical supervision for Social Workers under supervision for licensure. I am currently contracted through Grand Mental Health as a clinical supervisor, but am open to contracting through other agencies for supervision as well. I also love providing consultation to other clinicians and believe it to be integral to ethical practice. Other consultation services I will be providing are exploring ways to make our systems trauma-informed. This includes work places, schools, doctor’s offices and medical services including preparation for surgeries. I will also soon be offering CEU trainings.
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is the life work of Dr. Peter Levine and pulls from a multitude of disciplines and practices including indigenous healing practices, biology, physiology, psychology, ethology, neuroscience and medical biophysics. SE was developed as an approach to resolving dysregulation of the nervous system resulting from stress and shock trauma, restoring individuals to a state of resilience, balance, and ease. The SE approach works directly with trauma physiology in the nervous system to move out of a state of fight, flight, and freeze that keep individuals stuck in fixated patterns and states that greatly impact their lives, functioning, and quality of life. SE uses the skills of tracking sensation, titration and pendulation, mindfulness, and the intelligence of the body’s innate healing capabilities to slowly complete self-protective motor responses and discharge the associated survival energy from the body. This leads to gradually and gently increasing capacity to be with suppressed emotions and challenging body sensations. The goal of SE is regulation and integration, not relaxation or catharsis, to foster lasting change. Cathartic experiences, although compelling and relaxing, are short-lived and do not lead to lasting changes in the nervous system. This work is slow on purpose, and has results ranging from subtle to profound shifts over time.
I am a fully certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP).
The NeuroAffective Relational Model™ (NARM) is a cutting-edge model for addressing attachment, relational and developmental trauma, by working with the attachment patterns that cause life-long psychobiological symptoms and interpersonal difficulties. These early, unconscious patterns of disconnection deeply affect our identity, emotions, physiology, behavior and relationships. Learning how to work simultaneously with these diverse elements is a radical shift that has profound clinical implications for healing complex trauma. As such, NARM is positioned to become an invaluable treatment option for the Trauma-Informed Care movement as we gain greater understanding of the nature of adverse childhood experience (ACEs).
This developmentally-oriented, neuroscientifically-informed model, emerged out of earlier psychotherapeutic orientations including Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Attachment Theory, Cognitive Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing®, and bridges traditional psychotherapy with body-mind approaches within a context of relational practice. NARM is a mindfulness-based clinical treatment, as its method is grounded in a phenomenological approach to addressing identity and consciousness of self – who we truly are beneath these patterned ways of relating to ourselves and the world. Seen in this way, healing complex trauma is a vehicle for transformation on a personal and collective level.
In recent years the role of self-regulation has become an important part of psychological thinking. The NeuroAffective Relational Model™ (NARM) brings the current understanding of self-regulation into clinical practice. This resource-oriented, non-regressive model emphasizes helping clients establish connection to the parts of self that are organized, coherent and functional. It helps bring into awareness and organization the parts of self that are disorganized and dysfunctional without making the regressed, dysfunctional elements the primary theme of the therapy.
Core Principles
The NeuroAffective Relational Model™ focuses on the fundamental tasks and functional unity of biological and psychological development. The NARM model:
· Integrates both a nervous system based and a relational orientation.
· Brings developmentally-informed clinical interventions that use body-mind mindfulness and an orientation to resources to anchor self-regulation in the nervous system.
· Works clinically with the link between psychological issues and the body by helping access the body’s self-regulatory capacities and by supporting nervous system re-regulation.
· Uses mindful inquiry into the deeper identifications and counter-identifications that we take to be our identity.
In the NARM approach, we work simultaneously with the physiology and the psychology of individuals who have experienced developmental trauma and focus on the interplay between issues of identity and the capacity for connection and regulation.
NARM uses four primary organizing principles:
· Supporting connection and organization
· Exploring identity
· Working in present time
· Regulating the nervous system
I am a certified NARM therapist and am almost completed with the requirements to be a NARM Master therapist.
NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM)
EMDR is a structured therapy that encourages the patient to focus briefly on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and PTSD symptoms. Ongoing research supports positive clinical outcomes, showing EMDR therapy as a helpful treatment for disorders such as anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, addictions, and other distressing life experiences.
I am trained in EMDR, but did not pursue full certification.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
IFS is a transformative tool that conceives of every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts led by a core Self. We believe the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. Just like members of a family, inner parts are forced from their valuable states into extreme roles within us. Self is in everyone. It can’t be damaged. It knows how to heal.
IFS is frequently used as an evidence-based psychotherapy, helping people heal by accessing and healing their protective and wounded inner parts. IFS creates inner and outer connectedness by helping people first access their Self and, from that core, come to understand and heal their parts.
But IFS is much more than a non-pathologizing evidence-based psychotherapy to be used in a clinical setting. It is also a way of understanding personal and intimate relationships and stepping into life with the 8 Cs: confidence, calm, compassion, courage, creativity, clarity, curiosity, and connectedness.'
I am “IFS-informed”, meaning I have completed the 6 month circle through the IFS Institute.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
“Psychotherapy with the catalyst ketamine can offer a wide range of experiences and benefits. Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) sessions range from psycholytic (lower-dose) to psychedelic (higher-dose).
Treatment follows a basic structured protocol with room for collaboration with your therapist and doctor.
– Preparation Sessions (50-minute sessions)
– KAP Sessions (3-hour sessions) – using Lozenges prescribed by your doctor
– Integration Sessions as needed (50-minute sessions)
KAP sessions are generally 3 hours in length allowing for a natural flow from preparation to experiential to integration phases. Emphasis is on providing psychotherapeutic support and processing material that arises during sessions.
Dosing Variations
Low dose sessions may involve mild dissociation, relaxation, mindfulness, lowered defenses, anxiolytic and empathogenic effects, as well as anti-depressant effects. Moderate dose sessions may involve moderate dissociation, out of body experiences, and an expansive sense of self. High dose sessions may involve full dissociation from body and various transpersonal and mystical experiences.
Clients can expect to experience a range of benefits, including:
Profound shifts in perspective on self, relationships, and worldview
Decrease in negative or obsessive thoughts and negative self-talk
A more positive outlook on challenging life situations and relationships
Increase in self-esteem and self-compassion
Enhancement of creative problem-solving abilities
Greater motivation for lifestyle or behavior changes
Relief from existential distress
A “time out” from ordinary mind and reality
Potential of having a spiritual or mystical experience.”
https://www.polarisinsight.com/ketamine-clinic/ketamine-assisted-psychotherapy/
The 3 hour experiential sessions are not covered by insurance and therefore are a self-pay fee of $550. Prescribing of the medicine is done through your doctor and will include a separate fee to your doctor for his service. Medicine is self-administered during your experiential session in the therapy office.
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
Trauma sensitive yoga (TSY) uses yoga forms as a vehicle to practice sensing into the body and making choices about one’s body based on their present moment felt experience, in a non-coercive, non-directive, invitational manner. TSY is used specifically for the treatment of trauma and therefore is aware that all participants have experienced trauma to some degree. The purpose of trauma sensitive yoga is not to perfect the form but on building the participants awareness of their internal experience and their relationship with their body. TSY is also not meant to build self-regulation or experience relaxation, per se, although that might be a nice side effect at times. TCTSY is informed by hatha yoga, trauma theory, attachment theory, and neuroscience.
Trauma-informed yoga therapy, assumes that there will be participants in a class who have experienced trauma and seeks to reduce potential triggers in the class setting. It uses the practices of yoga and mindfulness to build self-regulatory skills, body-awareness, present moment awareness and mind body connection.
I utilize yoga in therapy sessions, per request, as well as in a stand alone adjunct practice. Private yoga sessions are $75/hour. I also occasionally offer public and private yoga classes and workshops for a more affordable fee.
Trauma Sensitive Yoga
(TSY, TIYT, TCTSY-F)
Compassionate Inquiry® is a psychotherapeutic approach created by Dr. Gabor Maté over several decades while working with both patients and retreat participants. This approach gently uncovers and releases the layers of childhood trauma, constriction and suppressed emotion embedded in the body, that are at the root of mental and physical illness and addiction.
When clients perceive the therapeutic relationship as a safe container, compassion and curiosity allow them to acknowledge and examine the traumatic events that happened to them as children, recognize the beliefs they internalized, and feel the emotions they suppressed. This contributes to the healing process.
Using Compassionate Inquiry, both the individual and therapist unveil the level of consciousness, mental climate, hidden assumptions, implicit memories and body states that form the real message that words both express and conceal.
When we can release ourselves from the hold of these stories, a new way of being emerges, leading to spontaneity, choice, expansion and freedom.
“The purpose of Compassionate Inquiry is to drill down to the core stories people tell themselves – to get them to see what story they are telling themselves unconsciously; what those beliefs are, where they came from; and guide them to the possibility of letting go of those stories, or letting go of the hold those stories have on them ….”
-Dr. Gabor Maté
I am trained in Compassionate Inquiry
Compassionate Inquiry(CI)
Mindfulness is defined as “paying attention on purpose, in a particular way, to the present moment, non-judgmentally."- Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness can be a state or way of being and a practice, formal or informal. Mindfulness is often utilized in the western world as a tool for relaxation, self-regulation, and better focus. In my practice, I use and teach mindfulness with the goal of building greater observational sufficiency of our internal experience in order to build capacity for difficult sensations and emotions as is necessary for a lot of the other modalities and practices that I use. It is foundational for somatic work, for resourcing, and for increasing our window of tolerance. Not only does mindfulness allow for greater tolerance of difficult emotions and sensations, but it also increases our capacity for experiencing more aliveness, which is necessary and foundational for trauma healing.
Mindfulness
iRest is a meditation practice based on the ancient tradition of Yoga Nidra and adapted to suit the conditions of modern life. When practiced regularly - little and often - iRest enables you to meet each moment of your life with unshakable peace and wellbeing, no matter how challenging or difficult your situation.
iRest was developed by Dr. Richard Miller, a spiritual teacher, author, yogic scholar, researcher and clinical psychologist, who combined traditional yogic practice with Western psychology and neuroscience. It is practiced and taught by thousands of people worldwide in a wide range of settings, including health centers, schools, community centers, yoga studios, correctional facilities and within military and veteran communities.
iRest has historically been endorsed by the U.S. Army Surgeon General and recognized by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury as a form of complementary and alternative medicine, thus warranting continuing research on its efficacy in the treatment of post- traumatic stress. iRest has been shown to be effective in scientific trials for conditions including chronic pain, sleep problems, depression and anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
iRest is simple to learn and easy to practice. It can be practiced by anyone, regardless of physical ability or experience with meditation. Once learned, iRest becomes a set of tools for life.
https://shop.irest.org/pages/about-irest
I am a Level 2 iRest faciliator.
iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation
Psychoeducation is invaluable when healing from trauma, for many reasons. Speaking from my own experience, being able to learn and understand what you are experiencing and why adds a very powerful layer of safety to our present moment experience by adding context to our internal experience. Without this understanding, individuals often shame, blame, or guilt themselves or fear the worst, which keeps them stuck and adds to their trauma. It can be a very potent resource that allows one to have a different relationship and perspective towards their bodies, their nervous system, and their sensations and emotions, allowing them to be with them and observe them in a way that is healing. When we understand how our nervous system works, the natural oscillation of expansion and contraction, we can trust the process and allow the sensations and emotions to move towards completion and containment, as opposed to becoming frightened by them and shutting the process down.
Psychoeducation
Consultation, Clinical Supervision, Trainings
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Clinical Consultation
Trauma-Informed Systems Consultation
Surgery or other medical procedure consultation
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Currently contracted with Grand Mental Health to provide clinical supervision to their employees
If you are seeking supervision and are not an employee with Grand, feel free to reach out about contracting with your agency
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Trainings and webinars for Clinical Continuing Education Units (CEU’s)
Non-clinical Trainings and webinars on various mental health related topics
