We offer a full range of mental health services with a special emphasis on the needs of children, adolescents, and families.
How We Help Our Clients
Relationships are the heartbeats of our lives. When there are problems relating to others in the family and socially it can impact every area of an individual’s life. For these unique issues, there are several different types of therapy in which our therapists have specialized training, to help each client’s unique needs.
Our therapists allow children to “work through” their challenges through the play itself or provide targeted intervention through specific activities by combining EMDR with other types of therapy. Utilizing a trust-based approach, we assist young people to identify the causes of their distress. Our specially trained therapists help them to acquire the skills necessary to encourage lasting change and a deeper self-understanding. Through a cooperative process, individuals are able to become more self-aware. Through the course of their development, our highly trained therapists provide the support and caring necessary to navigate this journey. Our therapists feel privileged and grateful for the opportunity to work with our clients; as they work hard to move forward with a clearer understanding of themselves and the important relationships in their lives.
About Us
As a mental health clinic and training center, our therapists cover a range of experience levels and training. All therapists are trained in EMDR and attachment/trauma challenges. We believe in the power of healing relationships and families.
Our Mission
Our mission is to promote the growth and healthy functioning of individuals and families through professional guidance. We offer a full range of mental health services, with a special emphasis on services for children with attachment and trauma challenges.
Meet Our Staff
Services
There are many types of therapy for children. We are eclectic in our approach interweaving various evidence-based modalities to provide the unique approach each child needs to heal. We allow children to “work through” their problems through the play itself or it can serve as a catalyst for meaningful dialogue between the child and therapist.
These are the therapies we offer for children: (click on the name of the therapy to learn more about it)
The foundation of therapy is the relationship with a trusted, specially trained therapist who can help young people deal with the causes of distress and help them acquire the skills to cope more adaptively in the future. The goal is to create a situation in which adolescents can express themselves fully in order to develop self-understanding and new, lasting changes in emotional states and behavior. Therapy with children and adolescents is a collaborative endeavor with parents or caregivers.
These are the therapies we offer for adolescents: (click on the name of the therapy to learn more about it)
Individual therapy is a collaborative process through which individuals work one-on-one with a trained therapist in a safe, caring, and confidential environment to explore their feelings, beliefs, or behaviors, identify aspects of their lives that they would like to change, better understand themselves and others, set personal goals, and work toward desired change. The overall goal of therapy is to increase one’s sense of well-being.
These are the therapies we offer for adults: (click on the name of the therapy to learn more about it)
Play Therapy
Initially developed in the turn of the 20th century, today play therapy refers to a large number of treatment methods, all applying the therapeutic benefits of play. Play therapy differs from regular play in that the therapist helps children to address and resolve their own problems. Play therapy builds on the natural way that children learn about themselves and their relationships in the world around them (Axline, 1947; Carmichael, 2006; Landreth, 2002). Through play therapy, children learn to communicate with others, express feelings, modify behavior, develop problem-solving skills, and learn a variety of ways of relating to others. Play provides a safe psychological distance from their problems and allows expression of thoughts and feelings appropriate to their development.
Play is a fun, enjoyable activity that elevates our spirits and brightens our outlook on life. It expands self-expression, self- knowledge, self-actualization and self-efficacy. Play relieves feelings of stress and boredom, connects us to people in a positive way, stimulates creative thinking and exploration, regulates our emotions, and boosts our ego (Landreth, 2002). In addition, play allows us to practice skills and roles needed for survival.
Children are referred for play therapy to resolve their problems (Carmichael; 2006; Schaefer, 1993). Often, children have used up their own problem solving tools, and they misbehave, may act out at home, with friends, and at school (Landreth, 2002). Play therapy allows trained mental health practitioners who specialize in play therapy, to assess and understand children’s play. Further, play therapy is utilized to help children cope with difficult emotions and find solutions to problems.
1. What should I tell my child about play therapy?
2. How will I be informed about my child’s progress?
3. What should I say to my child after a session?
4. What should my child wear to play therapy?
Andrew’s Day: Video
Play is a child’s first language. When a child plays they express thoughts and feelings that would otherwise remain hidden. That’s why play therapy is such a powerful tool to address a child’s behavioral and emotional challenges.
Why Choose a Registered Play Therapist?
There is another credential that play therapists in the United States can achieve called the Registered Play Therapist (RPT). This credential is provided through the Association for Play Therapy. It requires the play therapist to have at least a master’s degree and license in a mental health field, to complete a substantial amount of play therapy training, to have extensive clinical experience, and to have received play therapy supervision.
Sandtray Therapy
1. How long has Sandtray Therapy been used for children?
2. Why is it different from other types of Play Therapy?
3. Is Sandtray Therapy used in combination with other therapy types?
4. What is the purpose of the miniature figures used in sand tray therapy?
Sandtray Therapy Video
While play is a fun activity that can help a child learn, it can also be used to help children who have experienced trauma, learn coping skills. Well take a look at the benefits of sand play therapy. 0 to 5 in 30 Minutes! is a product of Valley Public Television. The program is sponsored by First 5 Fresno County, First 5 Tulare County, and First 5 Madera County.
Theraplay
Theraplay® provides techniques for children and families to create relationships that are based on nurturing and trust. The joy that play brings to children is also brought into the parent child relationship.
Theraplay® focuses on four central parent/child connection areas: nurture, structure, engagement, and challenge. Attachment and trust between parent and child are built through activities that encourage a secure bond for the child with the caregiver. Through play children are able to build self-esteem, trust, become more regulated, and connect with others in a meaningful and authentic way. Healing from trauma can be healed with techniques that are used allowing children and their families to reconnect with a safe and secure attachment. Theraplay can be especially beneficial for foster/adopt families.
1. What ages benefit can benefit from Theraplay®?
2. Will parents learn to use Theraplay?
3. How long has Theraplay been used?
4. How does Theraplay help?
More information about Theraplay and The Theraplay Institute are available at:
http://www.theraplay.org/index.php/about-tti
EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference.
1. How do children use EMDR?
2. Is additional training necessary to use EMDR with children?
More information about EMDR available at:
http://www.emdria.org
http://www.emdr.com/frequent-questions/
http://psychcentral.com/lib/frequently-asked-questions-about-emdr/
Attachment Therapy
Throughout life, each of us will form thousands of relationships. These bonds take many forms. Some are enduring and intimate-our dearest friend- while others are transient and superficial-the chatty store clerk. Together, relationships in all forms create the glue of a family, community, and society. This capacity to form and maintain relationships is the most important trait of humankind, for without it none of us would survive, learn, work, or procreate.
The first and most important of all relationships are attachment bonds. Initially, these are created through interactions with our primary caregivers, usually parents. First, relationships help define our capacity for attachment and set the tone for all of our future relationships.
Attachments influence the developing brain, which in turn affects future interactions with others, self-esteem, self-control, and the ability to learn and to achieve optimum mental and physical health. Symptoms can include the following:
- Low self esteem
- Needy, clingy or pseudo-independent behavior
- Inability to deal with stress and adversity
- Lack of self-control
- Inability to develop and maintain friendships
- Alienation from and opposition to parents, caregivers, and other authority figures
- Antisocial attitudes and behaviors
- Aggression and violence
- Difficulty with genuine trust, intimacy, and affection
- Negative, hopeless, pessimistic view of self, family and society
- Lack of empathy, compassion and remorse
- Behavioral and academic problems at school
- Speech and language problems
- Incessant chatter and questions
- Difficulty learning
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Apathy
- Susceptibility to chronic illness
- Obsession with food: hordes, gorges, refuses to eat, eats strange things, hides food
- Repetition of the cycle of maltreatment and attachment disorder in their own children when they reach adulthood
- Sensory Processing Disorder
1. Is it possible for a biological child to have attachment challenges?
“Even in utero and after birth, for every moment of every day, our brain is processing the nonstop set of incoming signals from our senses. Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste—all of the raw sensory data that will result in these sensations enter the lower parts of the brain and begin a multistage process of being categorized, compared to previously stored patterns, and ultimately, if necessary, acted upon.”
Pre-genetic disposition may also impact a child’s emotional development and self-regulation ability, children who are genetically wired to be more anxious may possibly interpret facial expressions and body language in a negative manner.
According to Seigel and Hartzell, (2003) a parent’s own unresolved issues from their childhood may impact their ability to effectively respond in parenting, causing them to become frozen in their ability to adapt to their own role of caring for their children in a clear and consistent manner. This has the potential to have a generational effect in parenting. We genuinely believe that parents do the best that they can with what they have been given (through their childhood experiences). If parents do not know how to meet their children’s needs because they did not experience this, they need to be shown.
2. Is it ever too late to heal attachment challenges?
Neuroscience has revealed that brain plasticity is possible throughout life. This provides an opportunity to rewire the brain and the response to relationships.
Awareness is such a powerful tool and parents are generally eager to learn, it can be helpful to be shown by someone who has the knowledge either through professional training, research, or experience.
We can learn to re-wire the brain through pattern-repetitive behavior that will forms new connections (new blueprints in our brain). Parenting psycho-education is vital for helping parents learn to attune to their children’s needs, how to regulate them (mind and body) and how to form healthy attachment relationships that will serve as a resiliency factor throughout the lifespan.
Alvarado, (2008)
“when relationships hurt, we learn not to trust in relationships, whether at work, school or home.” we work with people to help change the blueprints that people carry with them to form new understanding about people and the world around us.”
This is a core belief for our therapists in our center and is the foundation of our work.
3. For Adults: How can I have attachment issues – my parents loved me?
Even if your parents loved you, they may not have been capable of meeting your needs.
As babies, when we reach out and no one reaches back, when we express needs and no one listens, we often give up. Or if our caregiver is present some of the time and neglectful or abusive at others we become confused and keep reaching, keep hoping someone will be there.
In this process, we decide things about ourselves, such as “I must be unlovable” or “something must be wrong with me.” We then begin a lifelong quest to either avoid real intimacy or to find it, but when it shows up, in our desperation, we often unconsciously push it away. This longing and/or dissatisfaction often leads to anxiety, depression, co-dependency, addictions, fear of intimacy, rigidity, and wanting to hurt or be hurt as well as a failure to thrive as adults.
4. For Adults: Is it too late to heal my attachment challenges?
The brain remains flexible throughout life, nonverbal communication retains the capacity to change. Studies in people over age ninety show us images of mature brains that continue to produce new neural pathways at a time when older pathways are dying.
The same experiential and social factors that profoundly shape the brain initially can also be instrumental in repairing the causes and symptoms of stress related disorders.
5. Additional Resources
For Children & Adolescents:
We use an approach that combines Eye Movement Desensitization Response (EMDR), Integrative Family Attachment Trauma Protocol (IATP), and Trust Based Relationship Intervention (TBRI©). These are evidence based therapy modalities that provide an approach that heals the entire family, providing behavioral changes that allow the child to improve their emotional regulation skills.
The family is guided through a process that involves a series of specific EMDR interventions in addition to parenting strategies to strengthen and build the attachment in the relationships. The parenting strategies are at the foundation of our work, since traditional behavior methods are not a successful approach for children with attachment/trauma challenges.
For Adults:
Our evidence-based therapy utilizing Eye Movement Desensitization (EMDR) and Attachment based therapy can help you change the effects of an “adult attachment disorder” with our nurturing processes and experiences within a safe and caring environment.
Here we gently and safely guide you to discover your early experiences, beliefs, and coping strategies that keep you from having the love you want or keeping the love you find.
EMDR and attachment based therapy goes a lot deeper than talk therapy. The goal is to free a person from the unresolved emotions and triggers so that he or she becomes freer to live in the present.
Using EMDR to process traumatic events allows you to work through the emotions and sensory memories stored with them. In re-examining them, you are able to feel those feelings now, work through them now and defuse them once and for all. The released emotional pain is no longer repressed and allowed to fester.
You will discover the roots of current relationship issues and heal them at the source, giving you an experience of your authentic self. You will begin to experience yourself as lovable, capable, and worthy and will learn strategies to continue to build your newfound feelings of safety and potential as well as the skills to build healthy relationships and be more successful in every area of your life.
Trauma Therapy
Traumatization is stress frozen in place –locked into a pattern of neurological distress that doesn’t go away by returning to a state of equilibrium. Traumatization promotes ongoing disability that can take many mental, social, emotional and physical forms.
Much like stress, trauma is experienced uniquely by each person. Traumatized children have impaired wiring in the brain’s limbic system and altered levels of stress hormones, resulting in anxiety, depression, and self-regulation problems. Effective treatment and parenting rewires the limbic system and reduces the biochemistry of stress.
The ability to recognize emotional trauma has changed radically over the course of history. Until recently psychological trauma was noted only in men after catastrophic wars. The women’s movement in the sixties broadened the definition of emotional trauma to include physical and sexual abuse of women and children.
Now, the impact of psychological trauma has extended to experiences that include:
- Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, etc.
- Physical assault, including rape, incest, molestation, domestic abuse and serious bodily harm
- Serious accidents, such as automobile or other high-impact scenarios
- Experiencing or witnessing horrific injury, carnage or fatalities
Other often overlooked potential sources of psychological trauma include:
- Adoption
- Falls or sports injuries
- Surgery, particularly emergency, and medical interventions especially in first 3 years of life
- Serious illness, especially when accompanied by very high fever
- Neurological disruption caused by experiences in the womb
- Birth trauma
- NICU after birth
- Hearing about violence to or sudden death of someone close
- An auto accident considered minor by adults
- The breakup of a significant relationship
- A humiliating or deeply disappointing experience
- Forced separation very early in life from the primary caregiver
- Chronic mis-attunement of a caregiver to a child’s attachment signals (“mal-attachment”)
- Moving, changing schools, or change in life circumstances
- Bullying
- Isolation/lack of healthy attachments
- Sudden loud noises for babies or young children
- Recurrent medical issues early in life for example: Ear infections, asthma, seizures, reflux, allergies
- Caregivers with insecure attachment styles of their own or unresolved baggage of their own
- Genetic predisposition
1. Is it possible for a biological child to have attachment challenges?
“Even in utero and after birth, for every moment of every day, our brain is processing the nonstop set of incoming signals from our senses. Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste—all of the raw sensory data that will result in these sensations enter the lower parts of the brain and begin a multistage process of being categorized, compared to previously stored patterns, and ultimately, if necessary, acted upon.”
Pre-genetic disposition may also impact a child’s emotional development and self-regulation ability, children who are genetically wired to be more anxious may possibly interpret facial expressions and body language in a negative manner.
According to Seigel and Hartzell, (2003) a parent’s own unresolved issues from their childhood may impact their ability to effectively respond in parenting, causing them to become frozen in their ability to adapt to their own role of caring for their children in a clear and consistent manner. This has the potential to have a generational effect in parenting. We genuinely believe that parents do the best that they can with what they have been given (through their childhood experiences). If parents do not know how to meet their children’s needs because they did not experience this, they need to be shown.
2. Is it ever too late to heal attachment challenges?
Neuroscience has revealed that brain plasticity is possible throughout life. This provides an opportunity to rewire the brain and the response to relationships.
Awareness is such a powerful tool and parents are generally eager to learn, it can be helpful to be shown by someone who has the knowledge either through professional training, research, or experience.
We can learn to re-wire the brain through pattern-repetitive behavior that will forms new connections (new blueprints in our brain). Parenting psycho-education is vital for helping parents learn to attune to their children’s needs, how to regulate them (mind and body) and how to form healthy attachment relationships that will serve as a resiliency factor throughout the lifespan.
Alvarado, (2008)
“when relationships hurt, we learn not to trust in relationships, whether at work, school or home.” we work with people to help change the blueprints that people carry with them to form new understanding about people and the world around us.”
This is a core belief for our therapists in our center and is the foundation of our work.
3. For Adults: How can I have attachment issues – my parents loved me?
Even if your parents loved you, they may not have been capable of meeting your needs.
As babies, when we reach out and no one reaches back, when we express needs and no one listens, we often give up. Or if our caregiver is present some of the time and neglectful or abusive at others we become confused and keep reaching, keep hoping someone will be there.
In this process, we decide things about ourselves, such as “I must be unlovable” or “something must be wrong with me.” We then begin a lifelong quest to either avoid real intimacy or to find it, but when it shows up, in our desperation, we often unconsciously push it away. This longing and/or dissatisfaction often leads to anxiety, depression, co-dependency, addictions, fear of intimacy, rigidity, and wanting to hurt or be hurt as well as a failure to thrive as adults.
4. For Adults: Is it too late to heal my attachment challenges?
The brain remains flexible throughout life, nonverbal communication retains the capacity to change. Studies in people over age ninety show us images of mature brains that continue to produce new neural pathways at a time when older pathways are dying.
The same experiential and social factors that profoundly shape the brain initially can also be instrumental in repairing the causes and symptoms of stress related disorders.
5. Additional Resources
Trauma intervention is needed to allow the brain to process the event to prevent triggers of emotions in the future. All ages can benefit from therapy to process the trauma through neuroscience there is evidence of the plasticity of the brain to heal until death.
Trauma is a sensory experience and it is an experience like no other, commonly marked by a state of terror and powerlessness. Individuals of all ages can experience trauma, including infants and children.
Even when we do not consciously recall our trauma experiences (because of our age or protective functions such as repression) our body holds the memory, as does our mind. Regardless of the level of perceived intensity of effect on an individual, treatment promotes resilience later in life.
Traumatizing events can take a serious emotional toll on those involved, even if the event did not cause physical damage.
TBRI® Trust Based Relational Intervention
Developed by Dr. Karyn Purvis and Dr. David Cross at the TCU Child Development Institute. It has been successfully used for children with a wide range of behavioral challenges for whom other interventions have failed. TBRI® consists of three sets of harmonious principles: Connecting, Empowering, and Correcting. It is a holistic approach that is attachment-centered and flexible for challenging behaviors.
Most children are treated through the traditional medical model—consisting of visits to a practitioner’s office, with caregivers playing a superficial role in the child’s treatment. TBRI® includes caregivers and may be more effective because treatment occurs in the child’s environment where challenges occur. Our center involves parents in the treatment to provide the parent with the necessary strategies to respond to the behavioral challenges. Relationship-based trauma can only be resolved through loving, stable relationships such as can be offered by nurturing caregivers.
Why doesn’t traditional discipline work with my child?
Children who have experienced relationship-based trauma or early childhood trauma due to medical interventions need to feel safe and secure in order to respond appropriately. Traditional discipline triggers the child’s fight or flight response and behaviors escalate rather than decrease.
How is TBRI® different?
Parents and caregivers learn to look for the causes behind the behavior and create a safe environment for the child based on those needs. The phrase “A Scary Child is a Scared Child” describes the cause frequently pushing the extreme behaviors seen in children with attachment and trauma challenges.
How will I learn to use TBRI® when I am already overwhelmed by my child’s needs?
Our therapists provide the support and education needed to implement this program in a strategic manner for your child’s needs. We understand change is hard and provide a team therapist approach to enable a successful implementation of this program for your family.
Will TBRI® work for older children and teens?
Regardless of their ages, all children and teens require the need to feel safe and secure with their caregivers. Providing nurturing support allows children to openly discuss their feelings with their parents resulting in a healthy relationship. Dysfunctional behaviors can create barriers that block the development of healthy relationships. Targeting the causes or feelings behind the behavior allows for healthy open conversation about those feelings.
Contact Us
We are here to help you
Please complete this form and someone from our office will get back with you as soon as possible. We are looking forward to speaking with you. We are committed to your privacy. Do not include confidential or private information regarding your health condition in this form or any other form found on this website. This form is for general questions or messages to the practitioner.
Contact Form
Call Us
Email Us
Please feel free to write an email if you prefer not to use the contact form. Do not include confidential or private information regarding your health condition in this email or any other form found on this website.