Hey There-

Background and Style

 

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and use evidenced based brain-based therapies to relieve negative expression of trauma, stress and general dysregulation in the body or mind. I started my Masters degree program at New York University in 2013 and completed the B. Robert Williamson Jr. Leadership Fellowship in 2016. I specialize in working with complex trauma. I approach therapy with an eclectic, holistic approach that personalizes care for all clients. I welcome clients to notice inspiration and “content” or stories around them which help to integrate the deeper brain processing that we do in the office while at home or in between sessions. This style is considered emergent, inviting any relevant piece of wisdom or observation taken from literature, media, art, music, nature, spirituality, or random occurrence in your life that can offer pause, insight or even levity to trauma and build a deeper connection to yourself, family or community. To be emergent is to use your (sometimes, hyper-) vigilance in curious, playful, positive and/or meaningful ways as it comes up. We help you develop a more fearless mindset, one which is more open, aware and fearless and conditioning yourself to resolve or complete incomplete trauma responses stuck in the nervous system. Given your personality, pace and comfort, I use humor, imagery, “zooming out” perspectives and warmth in authentic ways to build a container for which all wounded parts of self are welcome to come out and seek “shelter” or connection and validation, nor matter how dark. It’s all human and all parts of self are still “self",” thus all parts are welcome. ​​

 

I explore various brain-based interventions with clients like, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatics and other nervous system-based practices. These interventions work to sustain healing conditions in the (nonverbal) subcortical region of the brain, where regulation of basic functions like sleep, appetite, hormone production, memory, emotion, pleasure, pain and sex drive are anchored. I also pull from Ego State and Schema Therapies, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) as needed to assist before, during and after trauma treatment. I consider referral to medical doctors to help client's utilize Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy when appropriate. I find that psychedelics can set the right conditions for safe trauma reprocessing work in anxiolytic (low or half) doses and full dissociative (or high) doses depending on the client's interests and needs.

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Areas of Specialization 

 

I specialize in working with complex trauma, that which is psychological/emotional or relational trauma, preverbal trauma and/or inherited trauma. By trauma, I want to pull from Page and Woodland's book Healing Justice Lineages to "define trauma as an experience or threat that overwhelms our individual or collective nervous systems." This is to include legacy burdens or inherited trauma which is passed down through generations with epigenetic implications from our physical and relational environments. Sometimes the trauma we have held in our nervous system doesn't come with a story. That is OK, we don't need a detailed narrative of trauma to heal it; we actually don't even need to talk about it! As a person with race and class privilege, I work personally and professionally to understand the maladaptive (emotional, psychological & physiological) effects that supremacy culture has on communities with ancestral roots benefiting from colonization and oppression.

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In assessing the burdens one carries, we utilize the cultural and historical significance of each clients' life and their lineages in a way to access the inherited trauma that may be connected to these burdens using somatic frameworks informed by Resmaa Menakem, LCSW, Jennifer Mullan, PhD, Staci Hines, Mark Wolyn, PhD and Tamala Floyd, LCSW.  This invites the client to listen to the wisdom of their own bodily experience as well as to connect their burden to relevant cultural and historic realities on a larger scale, offering a greater reach of understanding, validation and support. Everything feels "too big" until one learns it isn't "just theirs alone." Together, Phoebe and the client find the root of a burden and thus have a wider force to metabolize it physiologically.

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Some of us may not realize the relational or attachment-based struggles we’ve experienced in infancy, childhood or even adulthood can be described as trauma, yet, when considering that we are biologically primed for survival through human connection, we come to understand that attachment wounding is trauma. That being said, I have a particular interest in treating relational issues individually and in parent/child attachment or family work, including "chosen family" work. In navigating the fallout of trauma and intergenerational trauma, I work with clients who experience (Complex) Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, depression, anxiety, dissociation and conversion disorders for long term treatment; and offers short term treatment through extended sessions (referred to as “intensives”) to help reprocess large swaths of traumatic information in one or several days. After installing safety and trust in the office, together, we will look to identify and reorganize attachment patterns, survival responses or conditioned tendencies that no longer serve you.

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Therapeutic Process

 

Together, we explore the best methods to “rewire your brain” overtime by building a sense of somatic safety, dignity and belonging; the "new muscle" starts to work like updated computer software, giving you a new lens by which you view/sense your world. Since human survival is largely dependent upon attachment related safety and connection, folks who have disconnection in their lives may feel “fragmented,” or disconnected from a whole sense of “Self,” and others. Whenever a client reports feeling “stuck,” I explore trauma, stress and/or disconnection in the family tree. We also lean on trauma-reprocessing modalities to metabolize somatically. ​I welcome you to integrate your own personal, inspirational, philosophical, cultural, religious and/or spiritual beliefs as natural resources. Our insight or interests are always a hint and so I encourage you to show up as your most authentic self.

 

We might find ourselves examining the cultural, political, spiritual and economic systems of value you come from, when reviewing how the survival strategies in your DNA have impacted you or your family. As you develop more understanding, you shift away from the habitual patterns that made you once feel “stuck,” because you gain access to heal at the root of the trauma or dysregulation using somatic therapies. No matter what side of power and privilege a client falls on, all persons have been impacted by these value & power structures. Oppressive forces in our past, present and future have served to, and continue to, divide/disconnect us from each other and disempower communities of culture for generations, while stroking fear, paranoia, isolation, perfectionism, antisocial behaviors and a strong sense of urgency among groups who are designed to “benefit” from this organization of power. Such social and psychological maladaptation can be passed down generationally and may present as aggression, depression, anxiety, troubled relationships, codependency/enmeshment & narcissism, addiction, abuse, chronic pain and legal problems, etc. When examining these dimensions across a lifetime and lineage, we can better contextualize trauma, while depersonalizing and metabolizing the grief and rage it has caused, dismantling the patterns that develop out of protective drives. 

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Land & Labor Acknowledgement:

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I want to acknowledge that my work takes place on traditional territory of the Seneca Nation, known as the "Keepers of the Western Door" of the Haudenosaunee confederacy. I also acknowledge the debt to enslaved, indentured and imprisoned Africans, whose labor and suffering built the economy and infrastructure of a nation that refuses to fully recognize the humanity of their bodies, culture and history. I invite you to take a moment to explore the land you live on to research and reflect.

 

To learn more about the Seneca Nation, follow this link: Seneca Nation of Indians - Official Website and to read more on the Haudenosaunsee confederacy, click here: Home - Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

See about the native lands you reside on (US): Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land

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