Bridge Counseling and Wellness

Individual, Family, Couples Counseling

We offer individual and family therapy for teens, adults and couples. All of our therapists and coaches at Bridge Counseling and Wellness have been trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and are knowledgeable about how physical health can affect emotional health. Many of us have additional training you can read about in our bios. It is important to us to provide a safe and welcoming space for people to heal and grow. We will work together with you to individualize your therapy experience to meet your unique needs.  Some of the things we can help with are:

For adults:

  • anxiety
  • depression
  • post-traumatic stress
  • low self-esteem
  • life transitions
  • prenatal and postpartum therapy
  • work/family balance
  • grief
  • anger and frustration
  • lack of focus and organization
  • interpersonal relationships
  • stress reduction
  • mindfulness training

For couples: 

  • divorce
  • affairs
  • communication
  • parenting issues
  • trust and attachment

For children and teens:

  • anxiety
  • depression
  • self-harming
  • risky behaviors
  • school issues
  • anger
  • family conflicts
  • trauma
  • divorce

Many of our therapists are trained and certified in different therapeutic modalities:

Art Therapy

Art therapy is an integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Working with an art therapist, one can expect to be exposed to a variety of art media and techniques to facilitate expression of feelings, self-exploration, reduce stress, increase mindfulness, process trauma and aid in the healing process.

Brain Spotting

Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation and a variety of other challenging symptoms. Brainspotting is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment, enhanced with Biolateral sound, which is deep, direct, and powerful yet focused and containing.

Brainspotting functions as a neurobiological tool to support the clinical healing relationship. There is no replacement for a mature, nurturing therapeutic presence and the ability to engage another suffering human in a safe and trusting relationship where they feel heard, accepted, and understood.

Brainspotting gives us a tool, within this clinical relationship, to neurobiologically locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms that are typically out of reach of the conscious mind and its cognitive and language capacity. This technique could be helpful for:

  • trauma
  • anxiety and depression
  • performance enhancement

Brainspotting works with the deep brain and the body through its direct access to the autonomic and limbic systems within the body’s central nervous system. Brainspotting is accordingly a physiological tool/treatment which has profound psychological, emotional, and physical consequences. (reprinted from www.brainspotting.com). Stephanie Batts, LPCC has been trained in level 1 and level 2 and is currently in supervision for certification.

EMDR 

EMDR Therapy is a comprehensive, mind-body therapy approach, useful for overcoming stressful experiences of all kinds — even deeply embedded memories or traumas, which can be the basis of your depression, anxiety, relationship challenges, phobias, fears, or performance issues. This treatment is most effective in treating PTSD and trauma.

EMDR stands for “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.”  Excellent randomized-control studies have demonstrated that Eye Movements can help our brains to calm distressed memories and negative thoughts that we’ve been stuck in. The goal of this therapy is to help people get “unstuck” and gain the freedom to move past painful, uncomfortable and distressing thoughts, feelings and sensations.

This therapy is especially useful for individuals who have had little progress and results in traditional talk therapy or for those who talk therapy is not appealing. We provide EMDR therapy for adults 18 and over. Please ask us for referrals for children and teens.

Somatic Experiencing

The Somatic Experiencing® method (SE) is a body-oriented approach to the healing of trauma and other stress disorders. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine, resulting from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics, together with over 45 years of successful clinical application. The SE™ approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.

The Somatic Experiencing® approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.

SE offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states. It provides effective skills appropriate to a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others. (from the Traumatic Center Healing Institute)

Phone Therapy 

Many people struggle with finding the time to come into the office on a regular basis for therapy due to things like having children at home, illness or residing out of the Louisville area. Whatever the reason, we are able to complete sessions over the phone exclusively or an an as needed basis.