Rebecca, LMSW

Can we chat for a minute?

Something has brought you to the idea of attending therapy—something important. Maybe something huge happened in your life—something that arrived or left, something really sad, or something that was plain terrible. Or maybe you’re feeling stuck and aren’t sure why. Maybe you feel like you’re the only one going through this and hope to break the isolation. You’d like to not feel the way you’re feeling. You wish for something different and would like options, ideas, and treatment for your concerns.

You are safe and valued here…

Trauma can often present as a sense of heaviness, like an anchor to a distressing time. Others may perceive a person with trauma symptoms as angry, panicked, or dissociated. Often, the schedules and routines of life serve as effective distractions that keep feelings either in or out. So when we’re in a therapy session with fewer distractions, it’s likely that you’ll have large emotional moments and/or physical reactions, which are okay and expected. Part of my job is to make sure that we’ve planned for and practiced ways to experience feelings safely—to tend to them gently and with care. You’re not going in alone or unprepared.

The process of therapy…

Particularly a somatic, body-oriented therapy like EMDR, is often a study in decreased activation. Over time, you may notice that an event or memory that once bothered you a great deal is now not quite as troubling. Your shoulders might tense less when you find yourself thinking about it. It may seem to fade, like the images from a childhood TV show you barely remember. We will hope, as a team, that eventually it becomes “the past,” and that you are provided with more emotional room for the future instead.

I hope to surprise you in the ways you notice something new and meaningful about yourself during therapy, or when you’re reflecting on it afterward. When we’re given that specific space and focus during therapy, it sometimes becomes clearer when we’re experiencing those changes. I hope that this process is genuinely worthwhile for you. Evidence-based treatments have demonstrated results for thousands of patients, and if you would like to try therapy, I encourage you to allow yourself to participate.