EMDR
CBT
Somatic Healing
Mindfulness
Clinical Supervision & Consult
EMDR
When we have experienced trauma in the past, small or large, it has an impact on our day-to-day mood, emotions and experience. This is because truly difficult, painful, or scary experiences don’t get processed as our regular memories do. In other words, while our more benign, or even peaceful memories, get stored or discarded from our brain’s memory centre, our painful or scary ones are often not fully processed. As a result, our brain perceives them as an active threat in the present.
This is why a smell, a sound, a sight that is reminiscent of a scary memory can send our bodies into fight, flee, or freeze mode, even if there is no true active threat.
When I work with someone with EMDR, we start by building up safety and self-soothing skills. We learn how to soothe the nervous system, which is an incredibly freeing skill to have. From here, we begin to gently gain awareness of unprocessed memories that continue to cause fear or pain.
By stimulating the brain with bi-lateral movements, either tapping, following a light source that goes back and forth, or even just letting the eyes follow my fingers as they move from left to right, we gain easier, and less harmful access to those memories. This allows us to bring them into consciousness safely, and process them effectively, so that they lose the power of the present, and get stored appropriately in our brains as the past. Stored appropriately, they cannot continue to stir up emotional harm on a day-to-day basis.
I am a certified EMDR practitioner, and I've found this modality indispensable in the treatment of trauma, and trauma-related concerns.
CBT
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is an effective and evidence-based approach to relieving long-held distress and painful moods and emotions. It is one of the most well-researched forms of therapy and it has been the catalyst for several impactful and evidence-based therapeutic techniques, including, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.
The basic premise of this approach is that our automatic thoughts directly influence our moods and emotional experiences. Because neuroscience has shown that thought patterns are largely habitual, we can begin to alter our mood and emotion-state by tuning into our habitual thought patterns and learning how to check them for validity and purpose, (are they real/true/probable? Are they helpful?)
For example, if my brain is accustomed to thinking, “I am failing,” my brain will find a way to perceive that as truth in a multitude of situations. This is called the “cognitive bias,” and even the most skeptical of people I have worked with have overcome incredible emotional challenges by learning to be aware of and challenge their own cognitive biases and thinking patterns.
By altering our habitual thought patterns over time we can “re-program” neuropathways to experience a dramatic shift in daily moods and feelings. This approach is widely accepted as one of the most effective treatments for anxiety, depression/low mood and trauma.
Not only am I certified in this approach, it has been my main area of practice over my 15 years experience as a mental health therapist. I have also trained under a diplomat from the Beck Institute for 2 years, with monthly recorded sessions. I have also taught CBT at the university level to students and medical residents at the University of McMaster.
Somatic Healing
Somatic healing is a practice of responding to the body’s expressions of emotional and psychological pain. In other words, in this practice, the primary avenue for healing our emotional and psychological distress is by healing the nervous system. Recognizing that our bodies express our fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses, and that emotional pain is stored in the body, our emotional and psychological healing begins with a practice of mindful bodily awareness to identify the “charge” of sensations that arise in our bodies and often lead our painful emotions, actions and responses.
When I work with clients in somatic healing, we begin with bodily awareness. Tuning into physical sensations helps identify and release stored emotions and distress. We use breathing exercises to regulate the body’s nervous system and relieve the emotional tension that provokes the dysregulation.
Somatic Healing has become increasingly popular in western psychotherapeutic techniques because it allows a way of accessing healing that is not primarily based on “thinking our way out of our problems” and instead, about re-learning how to effectively respond to and care for our emotional distress.
Neuroscience has shown that increasing the mind-body connection is a powerful preventative measure for depression and anxiety, as numbing our bodily sensations and emotions is a common response to emotional distress that leads to distorted thinking and automatic perception that is implicated in driving low mood and anxiety.
Have you ever thought, “I wish I could get out of my head?” That is your intuitive awareness that over-thinking is dangerous and often painful, and connecting with your distress in a different, more somatic way will bring you greater peace and regulation.
Mindfulness
This therapeutic approach is based on Buddhist practices of mindful meditation that were first established in mainstream western psychology in the 1970s, and have continued to gain recognition as a powerful antidote to physical and emotional distress. From its early conception, mindfulness practices have been shown to dramatically mitigate the impact of powerful physical and emotional ailments.
When I am working with my clients in developing mindful awareness, the key is to engage in simple and often relaxing activities that allow the brain to simply and naturally respond differently to powerful thoughts and emotions. We begin to strengthen our “attentional muscle” and this allows us to observe our thoughts and emotions, which is quite different from being lead by them, and seeing through them. The current western mental health context has observed that as we begin to connect with our experiences mindfully, more intentionally, and less automatically, we begin to see our thoughts and emotions more clearly, almost from a brids-eye view. We begin to engage with a different way of experiencing our powerful and often distressing thoughts and emotions and attain more emotional peace.
When I first introduce people to mindfulness, I often get a bit of a hesitant response. I understand. When our minds are a bit wild and emotionally-provoked, it seems entirely unattainable that we might slow it down and provide ourselves some relief. But it’s all about timing. A good therapist, will help you know the right time to take on this practice, and how much pacing ourselves is necessary.
Clinical Supervision & Consult
My approach to clinical supervision and consult is collaborative, supportive and anti-oppressive. My main objective is to listen, and help the clinician to clearly view their strengths and build upon their existing clinical philosophy and style, so that no client presentation feels daunting or unnerving. I am happy to provide singular clinical case consults, or co-create an ongoing clinical growth program to meet the clinician’s clinical goals for their work. My consults are designed to minimize clinician’s apprehension and anxiety in sessions, and support them to adapt the therapeutic structure that allows them confidence, ease and fulfillment. I have been consulting, mentoring, supervising and instructing mental health clinicians for almost a decade, and it has been one of my favourite aspects of this work.