Services
Individual Therapy
Michelle specializes in providing therapy for the symptoms of trauma. Many people who experience something like an assault, or a car accident can go on to develop PTSD. Others may not have a single overwhelming event, but may have lived for many years in an environment that was not safe. If you are attached to someone who is also hurtful and unpredictable, the PTSD is more complex, and you may have been told that you have anxiety or suffer from “chronic depression” or even have medical conditions that are hard to treat or impossible to diagnose. Symptoms of trauma can range from annoying to debilitating and even life altering. Your therapy will be a collaborative effort to obtain your history and identify treatment goals. We will work together to identify and minimize your automatic responses to triggers and help your brain to understand that it is "remembering" and not currently in danger. As the brain calms down and learns a new way to remember an event, it actually changes itself, and the need for therapy decreases. Therapy for trauma is often done in conjunction with your current therapist or life coach, and can be short term in some cases. Many clients find that an intensive session of several hours, or a few weeks of focused therapy can be helpful in reducing symptoms. In other cases, if trauma has occurred over a lifetime in a variety of ways, therapy may need to be longer term.
Sessions are 50 minutes long and are billed at $150. “Intensives” are 2-4 hours in length, with breaks and are billed at $150 an hour. Appointments cancelled or changed without the required 24 hour notice prior to appointment time will incur the $50 service charge if they are virtual sessions, and the full fee if they are in person sessions. I accept cash, check (preferred) and some credit cards. I do not take insurance, but will happily provide invoices which can be provided to submit to your insurance company for reimbursement.
Individual counseling, or therapy, is about finding the right style and fit for the client to help them navigate the storm, whether it be a present stressor or a past trauma.
Treatment Specialties
DBT
Knowing what you feel, and why, and most importantly, what to do about it to feel better instead of worse, is no easy task. You may have been told you are “overreacting” or that it will be “OK” when it certainly doesn’t feel true to you. Some people are naturally more sensitive to emotion than others. This is not something to be fixed, it is something to be celebrated and we can learn to work with it.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a combination of therapies that is very useful in treating the difficulties associated with depression, anxiety, substance use, eating disorders and other harmful methods of coping. DBT includes four sets of skills:
- Mindfulness: the practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment
- Distress Tolerance: how to tolerate pain in difficult situations, not change it
- Interpersonal Effectiveness: how to ask for what you want and say no while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others
- Emotion Regulation: how to change emotions that you want to change
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy approach that has been proven effective for the treatment of trauma. EMDR therapy has helped millions of people of all ages to find relief from many types of painful stressors and behaviors. Complete treatment with EMDR means using a protocol that covers how the issue has been a problem in the present because it shows up from the past; and also how the issue may be robbing you of peace and comfort in the future. All three parts are needed to alleviate the symptoms and address the problem. The goal of EMDR is for your brain to "digest" stored painful information and to create a memory that you can be comfortable with. That means that what is useful to you from an experience will be learned so it can guide you in positive ways in the future, and inappropriate emotions, beliefs, and body sensations will be discarded. The goal of EMDR therapy is to leave you with the emotions, understanding, and perspectives that will lead to healthy and useful behaviors and interactions. It should only be done by a well trained and experienced provider.
Michelle is certified in EMDR which means that in addition to training, hours of consultation with experts in the field of trauma and dissociation have been completed as well. For more information please go to EMDRIA.org.
Michelle is also trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy, Prolonged Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Cognitive Processing Therapy. An approach to your specific need will be created for your individualized plan of treatment.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
~Wayne Dyer
