Psychotherapy

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Heal deeply:

Hopeful + Empowered + Active + Living

Heal your wounds.
Fulfill your potential.
Transform. Evolve.
I specialize in Trauma Treatment

I am a credentialed psychotherapist in private practice and a qualified mental health professional trained in the most effective methods of our time. I adopted EMDR early on, as it provides a way to accelerate the healing of trauma, including complex trauma. EMDR is an evidence based treatment. Complex, or developmental trauma, requires EMDR to be integrated with other seminal psychotherapies, allowing for healing from injuries to your self image, dissociation, attachment wounds, and the reenactment of ineffectual behavior patterns, especially those in relationships. I developed my own model to effectively deliver results, where you can actually begin to feel like your relationship with yourself is changing. I incorporate neuroscience informed practices to help achieve core change.

HEAL: Hopeful, Engaged, Active Living.  

The sacred lands of the Black Hills provide an organic landscape for healing.  The natural principle that governs all life is growth, change and evolution. Mental health means to be flexible, spontaneous, adaptive, and open to yourself, and your experiences. The first condition required is to be fully present. The second is the capacity to accept what you experience. Acceptance here means to be open to the here and now, rather than to judge it, or distance yourself from it. Acceptance doesn't mean “approval”.  Acceptance is experiential, while approval is judgmental. The ability to accept is a project, which requires we build up other capacities as well.

These two crucial skills, presence and acceptance, provide you with the means to have a relationship with yourself that is both rewarding, effective, and empowering. You are the means through which you create the rest of your life. Your relationship with yourself is the basis for how you relate not only to you, but to the  rest of your life and everyone in it. As such, It deserves your utmost attention and care.

The quality of life that all my clients are chasing, once they get to the core of their condition, is "wholeness". Wholeness is the same as feeling complete, feeling satisfied, content, at ease, and safe. Its the quality of being enough, having enough, doing enough. Satisfaction. With what? With yourself, first. If you aren't satisfied with yourself, how will you be satisfied with anything else? .

Wholeness, believe it or not, is your natural condition. What separates you from it is how you relate to yourself and your life. Primarily, it begins in your thoughts and perceptions, which then affects your feelings and ultimately your behavior patterns. Regardless of what brings you into therapy, you will want to achieve a clear, balanced relationship wtih yourself, through which you then get the rest of your life in order much more easily. When you begin to organize what is "out there", without tending to yourself, its like trying to clean a house that is in total dissary without first creating order, a pathway by which you can effectively clean.

Often, wounds, scars, problems, symptoms, are involved in your internal "clutter". By releasing them, you release self defeating pattern, and make space to discover your authentic, uninhibited, capacity to live life fully. 

Your power to live the life you wish is within you. It may be blocked by self doubt, which accumulates through disempowering messages you received and then internalized at some point in your life. Consequently, you exiled a part of yourself by judging yourself "defective" or "wrong" in some way, at some level.  This split separates you from your power, from yourself. As a result, living takes on the quality of a struggle.

Therapy is the path for you to restore yourself to your authentic self, in which you are empowered to achieve your full potential. 

My unique approach is grounded in practices that are:

1) evidence based, especially those informed by neuroscience
2) Relational   
3) Integral (mind-body, as recommended by the latest research on the brain body connection)
4) Contemplative practices (mindful and deliberative living) 

• Trauma

• EMDR

• Polyvagal Interventions: Safe & Sound Protocol

• Somatic Psychotherapy: Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing,

• Dissociation friendly interventions: Gestalt, Internal Family Systems, Ego State Therapies

• Neuroscience informed Best Practices: Mindfulness and Self Compassion Practices, including Heartmath

• Access Unconscious Resources & Implicit Memories

• Insight building: Psychodynamics & Relational Dynamics

• Attachment Focused Interventions:

• Nonviolent Communication aka Compassionate Communication

• Skills Building: Neuroscience informed Addiction Recovery

• Process addictions: ACOA & Codependency

• Heal the sources of chronic issues with Self Esteem, Self Image, Boundaries

• 12 week neuroscience informed behavior change track

• Equine Assisted Psychotherapy

• Integrative Mental Health: nutrition, exercise, and organic interventions; wholistic wellness

Where do you see clients?

I see clients in Rapid City and Custer. Contact me for availability.

Do you take insurance?

I do participate in certain insurance networks. I verify eligibility after your first session. Copays and deductibles apply to therapy as well. If I am in network, I submit claims to your insurance as a courtesy. Ultimately, you are responsible for the costs of treatment.  

How often are sessions?

Unless otherwise scheduled, sessions are weekly.  To ensure that you prioritize self care and our scheduled appointments, an administrative fee is charged for any missed appointments (canceled with less than 24 hours notice).