My Professional Journey to EMDR and Clinical Hypnosis
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Prior to the beginning of my career I had a desire to deepen my understanding of the power of the mind/body/spirit connection and its implications for resilience. I planned to someday incorporate that into a helping profession. What I didn't fully grasp at the time was that simply figuring out how to communicate and connect more clearly with one's subconscious mind is a profoundly effective way to help people create lasting positive behavioral and emotional change. Seventeen years of practice as a psychotherapist has solidified this for me and brought me to modalities that work more directly and effectively with the subconscious mind. These modalities include EMDR, Accelerated Resolution therapy, Clinical Hypnosis, and Somatic Experiencing.
Initially I studied Transpersonal Social Work, hoping to integrate inclusive spirituality into a counseling role, then life happened. I had the privilege of working in good but very conventional settings where transpersonal and mind/body modalities took a back seat to mainstream Western models of therapy. Though conventional talk therapy provided relief and could be helpful for many, I felt there was something missing, especially for people who had trauma stored in their whole mind/body system, not just in their conscious thoughts or feelings.
A desire to find solutions that worked more deeply and quickly brought me to EMDR. Working with EMDR gave me the gift of witnessing how integration of the right and left hemispheres of the brain with additional processes can allow us to release negative charge from our central nervous systems and more easily, in fact automatically reframe deeply held limiting beliefs. Since the central nervous system is run by our subconscious, our subconscious is also freed from the negative information, allowing us to reframe old beliefs on both a conscious and a deeper, emotional, subconscious level. Through repeated observation of this, I developed a newfound respect for other therapy models that work directly with the subconscious such as Somatic Experiencing, Clinical Hypnosis and Accelerated Resolution Therapy. In fact, EMDR borrows from and/or shares techniques with all of these modalities.
Working with these modalities I've been able to witness how making changes on a subconscious level empowers us to shift both our behavioral and energetic patterns. Because of this I have also been inspired to obtain Certification as a Clinical Hypnotist. Through training in Clinical Hypnosis, I've learned techniques that can help clients not only strengthen their ability to choose how they feel and what they do, but to continue to strengthen that ability long after we have completed our work together. Clinical Hypnotherapy is uniquely effective at helping people to do this while living life with enthusiasm and confidence.
Clinical Hypnosis is also great at releasing old patterns but if a client is experiencing more stubborn PTSD symptoms, we may choose together to use a therapy plan that incorporates EMDR or Accelerated Resolution Therapy. With the use of bilateral stimulation at the appropriate times this helps to release the trauma so that people can step into those resources. I've enjoyed watching the changes people make when they are no longer held down by old, trauma informed beliefs or energy. There are a few fascinating theories on how right/left brain stimulation works to adaptively release stuck trauma but ultimately, the brain is not a mechanical structure and none of the theories I've reviewed fully explain the energetic shift that often occurs. I am just happy that once the blocking beliefs and stuck energy are released, clients are more free to make the positive changes they desire.
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Regardless of the modalities we choose to incorporate into your therapeutic plan, the objective is that you will harness the strength of your subconscious mind with ease while meeting your chosen goals. The power of your subconscious mind is phenomenal and I have come to embrace these modalities because supporting people to truly empower themselves to live the changes they want is why I do what I do.
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