Opening up to a stranger can be really difficult, even in the best of circumstances. Seeking therapy for trauma can be even more challenging.
Restorative Trauma Therapy offers individual therapy and EMDR for clients throughout Michigan with a gentle and nurturing approach to help you feel safe, held, and encouraged.
In online or in-person individual therapy, you'll learn to tune into yourself and find the inner guidance and strength that already exists within you. You’ll learn to let go of unhelpful thoughts and form healthy thought patterns that align with who you are becoming through the healing process.
In our work together, you'll be met with support and understanding while letting go of shame and guilt. I’ll help you develop self-soothing and calming techniques to get you through the hardest moments.
Your therapeutic journey is an experience centered around your unique needs. With Restorative Trauma Therapy, you will find support as we work through your past, honor your present, and envision your future – without limitations.
Our work together is designed to allow you to explore and discover, learn, and grow as you embark on this personal journey.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based treatment for trauma and other symptoms such as anxiety and depression.
EMDR is a comprehensive eight-phase process that includes history taking, resourcing, stabilization, assessment, desensitization, installation, closure, and reevaluation.
EMDR aims to help the brain process and integrate traumatic memories in a more adaptive way. EMDR is a “bottom up” approach that rewires memory networks to desensitize us to old memories that cause dysregulation and disruption in our daily lives.
EMDR reprocessing can be done over telehealth. There is no difference in the effectiveness of doing EMDR virtually or in person.
Restorative Trauma Therapy is grounded in evidence-based and culturally-appropriate techniques that help give you the results you want, often without requiring years of therapy, including:
MINDFULNESS:
Mindfulness helps to increase your moment-to-moment awareness of feelings, thoughts and body sensations as well as an awareness of the environment and our surroundings. Mindfulness practice includes the observation of our feelings, emotions and sensations, a non-judgmental presence and the awareness of the present moment. Mindfulness uses a combination of guided imagery, breathing techniques, body scans, and meditation.
COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (CBT):
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps you understand the connection between your thoughts and feelings and how they influence your behavior. Clients will learn how long-held beliefs create automatic thoughts about ourselves and our lives, gain awareness of the impact of thoughts on our mood, and apply thought awareness to our daily lives to dispute our unhelpful thoughts. CBT is an evidence-based short-term approach that is highly-effective. CBT is an effective solution for a variety of concerns including Anxiety, Depression, Panic Disorders, PTSD, OCD, Insomnia, and Addictions/Substance Abuse.
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION AND REPROCESSING (EMDR):
EMDR therapy is an effective, often short-term therapy that targets and addresses past unresolved issues with the goal that these past issues no longer have the ‘hold’ on the individual that they have had. It examines and treats current situations that trigger these painful unresolved emotions, memories, and physical sensations. During treatment, procedures and protocols are used to deal with these past experiences. One key element is “dual stimulation” which uses bilateral eye stimulation, tones, or taps. In the process, healing often takes place in the form of the emergence of insights, perspective, changes in memories, or the formation of new pathways of association.
In addition to ongoing individual therapy sessions including EMDR techniques, I also offer short-term EMDR Intensives for those seeking to condense their therapeutic experience and progress into a shorter time period.
EMDR Intensives are extended sessions in which you clear “targets” (triggering memories) in fewer sessions. Basically, you get the benefit of several hours of EMDR therapy in one long session instead of spreading it out over the course of several months.
Intensives are designed for clients who have a solid set of healthy coping strategies. The intensive is tailored to the work your system needs at the time.
EMDR Intensive Options Include:
Single-day in-person intensive lasting 4 hours
Multi-day in-person intensive over 3 consecutive days (4 hours per day)
You may be concerned about processing memories for 4 hours straight. Trauma memories are processed in bursts of 45-60 minutes with breaks to debrief and relax between.
Intensives also include an initial assessment lasting 50 minutes, which can be conducted in-person or virtually. This session serves multiple purposes including determining if an EMDR intensive is a good fit for you as well as setting expectations and specific goals for the EMDR intensive. We will specifically look at traumatic memories and negative core beliefs that are blocking you from attaining that specific goal and process those memories during your intensive.