EMDR Therapist + TBRI Practitioner
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
With over 25 Years of Experience
EMDR Therapy
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is NOT just for trauma. EMDR helps to process our stuck, unprocessed memories that are driving our big emotional, physiological and behavioral reactions. This CAN be from trauma, but can also be from things in our past that we are unaware of and are currently overwhelming to our system. In fact, many people don’t know why they have the feelings or reactions they do.
Many people exist with feelings of dysregulation, hypervigilance, levels of anxiety and depression and other strong feelings, as if they were normal. It’s the only way we know. EMDR allows us to take the past memory and process it correctly so that it not longer triggers us in the present. The past memory was overwhelming to us in the moment and so we couldn’t process it. By using EMDR therapy, we can facilitate the processing of that memory and alter how it is stored in the brain, reducing emotional reactivity and negative beliefs.
With EMDR our brain utilizes its natural healing process to help find the path to a more adaptive way of holding the memory. These unprocessed memories that are causing the maladaptive feelings, sensations and behaviors today, are reprocessed using EMDR’s unique approach involving bilateral stimulation. Bilateral stimulation engages both hemispheres of the brain and is thought to facilitate the brains natural ability to reprocess traumatic information. The mechanism is believed to work similar to what occurs in REM sleep.
The way most of us need to be helped in our life today is by reprocessing these unprocessed memories from our past. Only then can our mind and body make sense of them in the past as they should be, rather than influencing our present!
TBRI Training
Complex developmental trauma impacts so many aspects of a child’s life that traditional methods of parenting and teaching often don’t work. However, there are specific interventions, known as Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI®), that can change a child’s life. TBRI training is needed by everyone who interacts with a child who has a trauma history so that they can thrive now, despite their history.
TBRI is an attachment-based, evidence-based, and trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children. TBRI uses Empowering Principles to address physical needs, Connecting Principles for attachment needs and Correcting Principles to disarm fear-based behaviors.
Adults trained in TBRI can change the trajectory of a child who experienced trauma because new interventions and interactions rewire the child’s brain. As their brain changes the child is able to heal and get back online to their appropriate developmental trajectory.
TBRI is for all types of caregivers including foster and adoptive parents, teachers of kids from trauma backgrounds and professionals working with these families and kids. TBRI can be applied to all age levels and in any setting including schools, homes, residential settings and orphanages.
SERVICES
EMDR Therapy
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy is different than talk therapy. EMDR therapy utilizes bilateral stimulation to facilitate the brain’s natural ability to reprocess stored memories to a more adaptive, processed memory so that it doesn’t trigger us in the present. EMDR therapy has many benefits: you don’t need to fully talk about your issues and it often has shorter treatment time compared to traditional therapies.
TBRI Caregiver Training
These trainings will go over the four TBRI modules: Introduction, Connecting, Empowering, and Correcting Principles. Attending this training is the best way to learn about TBRI.
Advanced TBRI Class
Advanced TBRI Implementation class is for TBRI-trained caregivers to receive deeper learning, discuss challenges, and provide opportunities to practice. This class will help better understand behaviors and equip you.