In a safe and comfortable environment I provide services for couples, adults, and children who desire healing in their lives. Therapy is an opportunity for personal growth and lasting positive change…
EMDR therapy is designed to activate the brain’s natural healing process to help people recover from traumatic events which can be the basis of your depression, anxiety, relationship challenges, phobias, fears or performance issues.
Click here to view a brief animated video from VEN EMDR of how EMDR works.
To see what clients of EMDR therapy have to share, please click this link from EMDRIA.org.
For more information about EMDR therapy please contact:
Every day
I am asked one of the following questions: What diet should I be on? What should I eat and not eat? What are the good foods and bad foods? What magic is in eating a particular thing
over another thing? Over the past twenty
years of treating people with food related issues my answer is, “eat a variety
of food and move your body.” But, what
do I really mean by that?
Eating a variety of food.
When my
daughter was four years old, she told me that peppers, “are too disgusting for
a little child to have to eat them.”
Clearly, yellow peppers were not the variety of food she was hoping for. But, tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers,
celery, sugar snap peas, from her garden, she eats those without blinking an
eye. Variety includes vegetables. Which ones do you like? How do you like them prepared? Would you want to plant a garden and grow
your own vegetables? The answer to these
questions will help inform your food variety.
Eating a
variety of food allows the food to do its job as medicine in our bodies that
maintains, prevents and treats disease.
Is
variety, McDonald’s fries and Burger King Hamburger and a Wendy’s frosty? Well, yes, by definition, that is
variety. Those foods may taste great and
eating them as a piece of your variety makes it your specific variety, just remember
to include other food as well. Adding
additional protein, carbohydrates, vegetables and fruit will give the food the
elements it needs to help it maintain, prevent and treat disease in your
body. Ultimately, this is what I am
after. Find the foods you like in all the categories and enjoy eating them in
moderation. Your variety should include
some fat, but remember it is just some, not all.
When adding
fat (character) to your daily intake of food, what do you enjoy? Fat helps the structure of brain cells called
neurons. You need it. Do you prefer salad dressing on your
vegetables or cheese and crackers as an afternoon snack. Not all fats are created equal, but finding
the fats you like in your daily intake will help your brain as well as you
manage eating that variety.
Have you
noticed someone’s shiny hair, or strong nails?
Protein in their food variety has made it possible for their hair and
nails to grow. Protein helps repair
tissue in your body. It also is a
primary building block for your bones, muscles cartilage, skin and blood.
Important. What protein do you prefer? Peanut
Butter is a huge stable in my house along with salmon. These proteins are wildly different from one another
but they both taste delicious. And both are protein as well as necessary
fat. The peanut butter has unsaturated
fats that help reduce LDL cholesterol and that lowers the risk of heart
disease. The salmon provides omega 3 fatty
acids for our brains.
Food is also
fuel for our bodies. Ever feel extremely
exhausted, you just can’t take one more step.
And at the same time you are crazing a chocolate chip cookie. Of course, because that cookie has
carbohydrates that will give your body energy.
Carbohydrates come in all shapes and sizes. From simple sugars to more complex starch
options. Bread, grain, pasta, nuts, milk,
yogurt, fruit are examples of carbohydrates.
What are your favorites? Do you
have a variety in your daily options?
Eat. Eat a variety of
protein, carbohydrates, fat and vegetables.
Eat that variety in moderation.
And perhaps most importantly, enjoy that variety! Remember that food variety is medicine and fuel
for your body.
Move.
Movement does wonders for your mental wellbeing. It improves how you feel about yourself, helps
you sleep, reduces stress, anxiety and exhaustion. What kind of movement do you enjoy? Do you
enjoy movement with other people or alone?
Recently my son bought a movement video game. He knew that I’d be more inclined to say yes
to a new video game because it included movement. He was correct. He fights bad guys wieth his body movements. I
have noticed when he is done playing this game, he wants to spend time with his
siblings, he is more talkative to everyone in the house, and more willing to
focus on homework. This is movement in
action.
Video game movement is pretty creative and enjoyable for my
son. Moving your body should be enjoyable. It can be a fast run or a walk with a
friend. Both are movement. We move our bodies when we dance, swim,
cycle, garden. Do what makes you happy
because you will continue to do it.
Just like with food, moving your body does more than we
think. Movement increases our brain size
because it provides extra oxygen to our brains.
Movement prevents memory loss. As
I mentioned earlier, it helps us sleep, reduces anxiety and depression and improves
our mood. Finding the way you love to
move your body has amazing benefits.
So what do I mean by eat a variety of food and move your
body? I hope the above sheds some light on
the answer. In synopsis, eat all kinds
of food from protein to dessert and eat them in moderation. Move your body in a way that you enjoy! And if you need to ask some questions of
yourself to find out what this means for you, start asking. Ask yourself questions to learn what variety of food suits
you and what movement you enjoy enough to do again and again.
May you go and eat a variety of food and move your body
today!
In order to treat trauma, one needs to be able to define it. This is something professionals continue to struggle with. For those in the field of treating trauma, trauma is looked at as a continuum or spectrum to make sense of what is commonly described as little and big ‘T’ trauma. From a medical perspective to diagnose trauma the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) defines trauma and stressor related disorders to only include disorders in which there has been exposure to a traumatic or stressful event that is listed explicitly as one of the diagnostic criteria. This includes the diagnoses of reactive attachment disorder, disinhibited social engagement disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), acute stress disorder, and adjustment disorders. However, those in field of treating trauma feel that this doesn’t address the broad spectrum of symptoms that trauma victims may experience, some of which occur over the course of many years.
Robert Scaer, author of, The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Woudls and Human Resiliency, (2005) suggests a different theoretical concept to explain trauma; “the brain, mind, and body exist on a continuum, wherein sensory input from the body shapes and changes the structure and function of the brain, which concurrently shapes and alters the body in all of its parts, particularly those that provided this sensory input to the brain. The mind is basically a receptacle for perceptual experience, including body sensations or feelings, and the positive or negative emotions that are related to that information. If we accept the idea that the mind, brain, and body exist on a continuum, then we must also consider the ways in which trauma affects the brain/body. Ideally, the brain/mind/body uses what it learns form a traumatic event to develop resiliency and fortify the individual against future similar occurrences. However, depending on the individual’s prior experience and the nature and outcome of the event, the trauma may actually lead to dysfunctional physiological changes in both the brain and body. The dynamic interaction of the brain/body in turn sends cues to the mind affecting what it senses, feels, and perceives. If the brain/body has been overly conditioned and sensitized to react to life threats, the mind will perceive threats in situations where none may exist.”
To simplify this: the mind, body, and brain all communicate together to give meaning to everything we experience; therefore, one person may experience “trauma” where another may not. Bessel Van der Kolk (2014) postulates that trauma can be a result of an experience of extreme stress or pain where an individual is unable to take action in response to that experience that leaves them feeling helpless, overwhelmed, and unable to cope with the adversity. Van der Kolk suggests that traumatic experiences are stored in the body and therefore argues that in order to treat trauma that the whole person body, mind, and brain needs to be treated. To explain this, researchers have drawn from the experience of watching animals and correlating this to the human experience. One example is the response of polar bears who are tranquilized for medical and tracking purposes in the wild. The polar bear once shot with a tranquilizer will initially respond by running in fear until it collapses in response to the medication. As the polar bear awakens slowly it initially is moving its legs as if it were continuing to run while laying on its side. Once it has enough strength to get up it will preform a full body shake and then slowly amble off. It is believed that the polar bear is therefore moving and shaking out the traumatic experience from its body, processing its fear so it can move on.
Healing from trauma means altering the meaning of memories by changing conscious and unconscious somatic perceptions and untangling the learned associations from past and present. If we only address the verbal and visual context of a traumatic event the unconscious combination of body-based memories will continue to intrude and bring up the trauma. There have been a multitude of treatment modalities developed to address trauma. Research has shown that treatment models that incorporate body, mind, and brain have been the most effective in treating trauma.
One method of treating trauma is Brainspotting (BSP), which was developed by David Grand, Ph.D. Grand (2013) describes; “The motto of Brainspotting is, ‘Where you look affects how you feel.’ If something is bothering you, how you feel about it will literally change depending on whether you look off to your right or to your left. Our eyes and brains are intricately woven together, and vision is the primary way that we, as humans, orient ourselves to our environment. Signals sent from our eyes are deeply processed in the brain. The brain then reflexively and intuitively redirects where we look, moment to moment. The brain is an incredible processing machine that digests and organizes everything that we experience. But trauma can overwhelm the brain’s processing capacity, leaving behind pieces of trauma, frozen in an unprocessed state.”
The BSP model draws from EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and Somatic experiencing (SE). BSP hypothesizes that the field of vision can be used to locate eye positions that correlate to inner neural and emotional experience, which is where we are holding the trauma in our brain. Once these eye positions are located, by maintaining eye fixation in those positions, it is possible to heal and find resolution regarding issues that have been held deeply in the non-verbal, non-cognitive areas of the neurophysiology, [and the rest of the body]. BSP utilizes focused activation and focused mindfulness as its mechanisms of operation. Grand postulates that as the eyes can scan the external environment, they can also be used to scan the internal environment – the brain and body. This allows the focus to be on the specific internal spot that the trauma is stored promoting deep processing and the release of trauma creating resolution. BSP “is uniquely designed to be integrated into other [therapeutic] approaches. The human brain-body system is vast and complex and needs to be perceived and responded to in its individuality. No one technique, including BSP, can address every client situation in its entirety.”(Grand, 2013)
BSP is used in trauma treatment but it has also been effective in the treatment of injury, stress, attention levels, and motivation. It is a preferred method of treatment for the following: • Chronic fatigue and chronic pain • PTSD • ASD • Complex Trauma • Developmental Trauma • Substance abuse • Phobias • Sports performance issues • Anxiety • Attention issues (ADHD) • Anger issues • Impulse control issues
_____________ American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Grand, David. (2013). Brainspotting: The Revolutionary New Therapy for Rapid and Effective Change. Boulder. CO: Sounds True. Scaer, Robert. (2005). The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency. New York, NY: WW Norton & Co. Van der Kolk, Bessel A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York, NY: Peguin Books