Specializing in…
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
Trauma / Complex Trauma / PTSD / CPTSD
Attachment and relationship trauma
Religious Trauma
Adult Survivors of Emotionally Immature Parents
Marriage / Couples Counseling
Pre- Marital Counseling
Anxiety
Grief / Loss
Counseling from a Christian Worldview
Read more about my EMDR qualifications at my About page!
What is Trauma?
Life is hard, and nearly everyone is affected by trauma in some way during their lifetime.
Trauma can be categorized as “single incident” or “complex”
Single incident traumas
can occur when a person experiences a natural disaster, being a victim of a violent crime, surviving a potentially life threatening accident or near-death experience, or being exposed to death, injury, or violence on the job (such as experienced by law enforcement and first responders). A person can experience multiple single incident traumas.
Complex trauma
is typically relational at its core beginning in childhood, often due to the absence of or abuse by primary caregivers. It is repeated and ongoing and difficult or impossible to escape. It has developmental consequences and affects brain development, having consequences that extend into adulthood and include trouble regulating emotions, memory and concentration impairments, and trouble engaging in secure and healthy relationships.
Trauma is a response that happens when you experience something that exceeds the available resources you have to cope. It includes things that happened that should not have, or things that should have happened, but didn’t.
Trauma survival responses may include feelings of shame, anxiety, mood disruption, sleep disruption, isolation or avoidance of people or places or situations, impulsivity, irritability, aggressiveness, relationship problems, or lack of safety in your relationships, in the world around you, and even within yourself.
We have to FEEL before we can DEAL (with the "stuff”)…
…but we also have to FEEL SAFE before we can safely feel anything else!
I have found that it can be very effective to resolve trauma by integrating interventions rooted inInterpersonal Neurobiology (INPB), Polyvagal Theory (PVT), and Eye Movement and Desensitization (EMDR).
What does it mean to be an adult child of Emotionally Immature Parents?
Adult children of Emotionally Immature Parents (EIPs) may…
struggle with feelings of shame and loneliness
believe that their emotional needs do not matter, so they neglect their own needs and prioritize everyone else’s needs
suffer with low self-esteem and emotional insecurity
have trouble creating healthy adult relationships of their own
develop attachment wounds and complex trauma
If the trauma is not repaired, you may become an EIP yourself and continue the cycle
I can help you resolve the trauma from Emotionally Immature Parenting so that you can freely enjoy your relationships and establish a different legacy.
What are “Emotionally Immature Parents?”
Emotionally Immature Parents (EIPs) are unwilling or unable to regulate their emotions and communicate constructively.
They lack self-awareness and empathy. They are self-focused and can either be emotionally volatile and unpredictable or disengaged and physically and/or emotionally absent.
They require their children to take care of their emotions while shaming their children for having their own emotional needs.
EIPs deflect from any attention on their shortcomings or failures —”I guess I’m just the WORST mother in the world!”
Everything to revolves around them while the rest of the family works hard not to upset them.
They are unwilling to self-reflect or consider their impact on their children.
Marriage / Couples Counseling
With advanced education and training in the field Marriage and Family Therapy and certification as a PREPARE/ENRICH facilitator, I am interested in facilitating health in your most important relationship!
Do you struggle in your marriage / relationship to:
Communicate in ways that honor and respect one another and your relationship
Resolve present hurts and offenses promptly and effectively
Really and truly repair past huts and offenses so that they don’t become present hurts and offenses again and again?
Couples often struggle because they don’t know how to navigate conflict constructively. They didn’t have good role models for this in their families of origin.
Sometimes I hear clients say triumphantly, “My parents never fought!”
Other times I hear clients describe the horrific ways their parents destroyed one another with their abusive behaviors.
In both cases, when I ask if they ever saw their parents work through conflict constructively, they blink blankly at me.
What if the goal ISN’T to avoid all relationship ruptures, but instead to be able to effectively REPAIR relationship ruptures when they DO occur?
Couples tend to polarize in patterned ways, and they tend to have one or themes that they argue about repeatedly.
When we can disrupt this polarizing and recognize the themes, we can change the way your relationship works!
The PREPARE/ENRICH program has been the #1 pre-marital and marriage assessment for over 40 years and continues to be one of the most researched assessment tools with over 1200 published articles supporting its validity and reliability.
Pre-Marital Counseling
I can help equip you with solid pre-marital preparation to help you establish healthy relationship skills BEFORE you develop negative patterns and habits in your marriage!
Marriages in our culture demonstrate a high frequency of divorce, and only a portion of those marriages that do not end in divorce are healthy and rewarding relationships.
With such a high statistical rate of divorces and unhealthy marriages, there is also an increased chance that engaged partners have divorced parents or have never witnessed a healthy marriage.
They may have no idea what a healthy marital relationship looks like, and if they don’t learn the skills to develop a healthy marriage of their own, they may repeat unhealthy relationship patterns in their own marriage.
Pre-marital counseling can be invaluable to starting a life-long relationship on a healthy foundation!
I offer a pre-marital counseling package using the PERPARE program for a total reduced cost!
The PREPARE/ENRICH program has been the #1 pre-marital and marriage assessment for over 40 years and continues to be one of the most researched assessment tools with over 1200 published articles supporting its validity and reliability.
Anxiety and Panic Attacks
When your autonomic nervous system interprets danger, it becomes activated into FIGHT (move toward), FLIGHT (move away from), FAWN (people pleasing), or FREEZE (immobilization).
Your nervous system is simply doing what it is designed to do in the face of perceived danger. And this is a good thing—at least when you NEED this response to get to safety…
…but what if your nervous system is responding as if you are in danger when you’re NOT?
This is what we call “ANXIETY”
Most people spend far more time in fight/flight/freeze states than they spend in feelings of safety in the present moment. This is called “sympathetic arousal” in your nervous system.
And this takes a major toll on your physical and emotional self.
Chronic sympathetic arousal taxes your emotional and physical self and increases your risk of developing of both acute and chronic illness.
I can help you…
gain a better understanding of how your autonomic nervous system works
understand what sends YOUR nervous system into fight/flight/fawn/freeze responses and…
what brings it into a sense of safety
learn how to regulate your emotional and physiological responses to reduce toxic stress and relieve unnecessary burden on your physical and emotional self
I am also experienced in applying EMDR to help resolve anxiety
Grief is the process of figuring out how to cope with loss. Most often, we think of grief as something that follows the death of a loved one, but we can also experience grief when we lose a relationship, go through a divorce, move to a new home or community, lose a job, face the end of a career, or experience any type of life or role change.
We can also grieve the loss of "what never was" or "what never will be."
Grief Counseling
Grief is a normal reaction to loss, and a necessary process for healing.
Grief is often accompanied by
an acute time of intense feelings of yearning and sadness
thoughts and images of a lost loved one
feelings of disbelief or shock
loss of interest in things you used to enjoy
feeling disconnected from others
There is no specific timeline or “normal” way to grieve; it is different for everyone. Most people progress through grief and begin to adapt to their loss within about a year.
If after 12 months have passed and you still find yourself…
stuck in rumination
chronically avoiding things that remind you of you lost loved one
isolating from others while remaining preoccupied with your lost loved one
feeling that your happiness is solely dependent on the one who was lost
…we call this “complicated” or “prolonged” grief.
Grief can become “complicated” or “prolonged” when a person has been unable to begin to adapt to their loss after about a year
Some things I will help you work through as a part of grief counseling:
expressing your emotions, which can be complicated and confusing, and could include such feelings as
Shock
Denial
Anger
Helplessness
Regret
Sorrow
Guilt
developing and utilizing effective coping approaches
growing into an acceptance of the loss and adjustment to a “new normal”
figuring out how to maintain a healthy connection to your lost loved one
finding or rediscovering a sense of purpose
redefining your identify
I have experience utilizing EMDR when there is underlying trauma interfering with the normal, healthy grieving process
Your Healing Journey Through a Christian Perspective
for those who desire this approach
Above all else, I recognize that God is the source of healing and is always in the process of making all things new!
While my faith informs and influences my identity and my commitment to care well for you as a whole person, please be assured that my work as a counselor is not to proselytize or expect you to share my worldview or faith perspectives. In my role as counselor, I meet you where YOU are in your own worldview. I have over 25 years of experience working successfully with people from a variety of walks of life with varying worldviews and belief systems.
Discover something new in YOUR life!
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Discover something new in YOUR life! —