I have always had deep desire to help people. I love working with clients to help them truly from past hurts or finally find peace and contentment within themselves so that they can genuinely enjoy their lives. Before I became a therapist, I was a personal fitness trainer. As a trainer, my goal was to help clients achieve results, which could be easily determined by the scale, measuring tape, or how well a particular pair of cute jeans fit them. To keep clients, I needed to help them see results. When I received my Master's in Social Work and obtained my license to provide therapy independently, I began to notice that the therapeutic world was very different from the personal training world. Positive results didn't seem to be a consistent theme with therapeutic approaches. One reason I believe this is the case is that therapists often work with too broad a population and utilize many therapeutic approaches they are comfortable with, but in which they are not necessarily experts. You can be a therapist who sees anyone from young children to the geriatric population and provide nothing more than a listening ear and some validation here and there. I would hear stories of people who had been in therapy for over a decade with the same therapist. That blew my mind! Therapy is meant to help people improve, not just maintain a state of "getting by." BECOMING AN EMDR THERAPIST:** I wasn't a therapist for very long before EMDR therapy started calling my name. I was working at a residential treatment facility for children deemed "unable to live in society due to mental and behavioral problems." Most of these children had tragic starts to their lives and felt horrible about themselves and the world. I felt helpless as a therapist, with the only real power to listen and enact no significant change. Then I was trained in EMDR, and it was the answer I had been looking for—a short-term, scientifically based, measurable treatment model. I fell in love with it during my training, and I became committed this therapeutic approach when I saw my clients achieve results time after time. I wasn't just making them feel good by validating them or being a "rent-a-friend." EMDR changed the way people themselves and the world. It was true healing, not just a band-aid. I have since moved on from residential treatment to outpatient therapy and finally to private practice. Over the last 15 years, I have honed my skills in EM, progressing from a trained therapist to a Certified therapist and now to a therapist who consults other therapists, helping them learn and apply EMDR. I began using EMDR with traumatized children and have since expanded its use to adults struggling with depression, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders, adjustment disorders, thought, and personality disorders. I see people who have been significantly traumatized by life since early childhood, diagnosed with Complex PTSD, to those who just want to think and feel better in their lives. EMDR has the amazing capacity to heal, providing symptom alleviation and measurable results.​To find out more about EMDR Therapy click here.​Follow me on facebook by clicking here.