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My approach to trauma
Establish a trusting therapeutic relationship where I am my authentic self and we work together to help you also feel comfortable enough to be your most authentic self with me.
The Unique Map of the Therapeutic Process
Each individual's needs are unique, requiring the therapeutic map to be modified and revisited to be most effective. Dr. Irvin Yalom, a pioneer in the field of psychology once said "therapy should not be theory driven, but relationship driven." A brilliant author Dr. Jamie Marich explores Yalom's theories and highlights meta-analyses with emphasis on how the therapeutic relationship allows us to heal. Although I am well trained in multiple evidence-based practices, I truly believe it is the relationship we build together that will create the foundation and facilitate your healing.
A Glimpse into Your First Therapy Session:
We meet and develop trust. I gather information from you in an organic way; however, I also bring an attachment lens to explore gaps in developmental needs. I help you map out your internal structure, in an effort to identify which part of you is feeling/thinking/behaving.
Identify old learning and how it is impacting the present. Old learning includes messages such as “I’m not good enough,” “It’s my fault,” “I’m not lovable,” “If I don’t succeed I am not worthy of love or good things.”
Learn Practical Tools:
I most certainly will provide you with practical tools to identify triggers, self-soothe, regularly meet your own internal needs, calm and regulate your nervous system, and manage impulses, in an effort to then positively impact your behavior.
Learn new information, including new skills to help you function with less distress, and more balance. Specifically attend to your nervous system through mindfulness practices.
For those of us with complex trauma, ego state therapy is part of this phase of therapy.
About EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy):
EMDR Therapy is by far, the most streamlined comprehensive, and systematic evidence-based approach to healing trauma and finally obtaining desired transformational change. You can learn more about the history of EMDR through this link (https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/).
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Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD, in his seminal book The Body Keeps The score, reports that his research has shown that “EMDR integrates traumatic material.”
Essentially, new learning is paired with old learning, and “integrated with other life events and stops having a life of its own.”
This restores a sense of “agency, engagement, and commitment through ownership of body and mind.”
Due to trauma, the mind/body connection can be split off in order to help us survive in the moment.
Through EMDR, we can reclaim our connection to our mind and body, make the unconscious conscious, and experience more control and intention in our every day lives.
EMDR During Pregnancy
Please read the following article by Bethany Warren, LCSW, PMH-C, certified in Perinatal Mental Health and EMDR Therapy where she references studies that support the safety and benefits of EMDR during pregnancy: Click Here for article
Once necessary skills are acquired and practiced,
we can do the heavy trauma work (Phases 3-6 of EMDR), which include desensitization, and reprocessing.
Phase 7: Closure
Occurs at the end of each session. Here you and I discuss your experience in the session/answer questions. We also attend to safety, and put away the memories, and disturbing material in a container to be looked at another time/next session, or when you choose to journal. This is where you let go and ground to the present.
Phase 8: Re-evaluation
At the beginning of each session I will work with you to explore your current disturbance and experience with what we had worked on in the past session. We continue processing until the specific old learning no longer holds emotional charge, and you feel the disturbing past is integrated with your present learning and wisdom.