Our approach
Put simply, we want to see you thrive
We know that traumatic experiences, both big and small, can prevent you from engaging in a meaningful and joyful life. Our goal is to provide you with tools and skills that will help to settle and heal your nervous system, and to help you process and start to think differently about yourself, others, your past, and your future. We hope that we can be of assistance not only in developing new skills and understandings for yourself, but that we can help educate your supporters and aid with your discharge planning when it is time.
We invite you to your healing process. We are here to support, offer guidance when you seek it, and to witness your healing journey. We will always seek to be collaborative and to help you to achieve your personal recovery goals.
What We Treat
How We Treat Trauma & Related Disorders
Our therapists are experienced in evidence-based treatment modalities
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is evidence-based psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro, Ph.D. EMDR enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. During an EMDR session, the therapist leads a patient in a series of “bilateral stimulation” sets which may be eye movements (following the therapist’s hand movement with one’s eyes back and forth from left to right), alternating tactile or sound stimulation. Using detailed protocols that use cognitive, imaginative, and somatically based procedures, therapists help clients activate their natural healing ability.
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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based cognitive-behavioral treatment developed by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D., ABPP. DBT skills training helps people learn and use new skills and strategies to act effectively and to develop a life that they experience as worth living. DBT skills include skills for mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
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Somatic Experiencingâ (SEä) was developed by Peter A. Levine, PhD to address the effects of trauma. Levine developed this approach after observing that prey animals, whose lives are routinely threatened in the wild, are able to recover readily by physically releasing the energy they accumulate during stressful events. Humans, on the other hand, often override these natural ways of regulating the nervous system with feelings of shame and pervasive thoughts, judgments, and fears. Somatic Experiencing helps people move past the place where they might be “stuck” in processing a traumatic event.
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A specific type of cognitive therapy that we use at Sanctuary is Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). CPT was developed by Patricia Resick, Ph.D. CPT is an annualized treatment, generally delivered over 12 sessions. Through examining “stuck points” (unhelpful beliefs related to the trauma) people create new understandings of the traumatic event, themselves, others, and the world.
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Incorporating art creation and movement to support, expressive arts and yoga therapy groups will offer you opportunities to explore experiences using non-verbal modalities.
embodied behavioral resource model™
Sanctuary’s Embodied Behavioral Resources Model (EMRM) reflects our integrative approach to treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and related disorders. EBRM focuses on the complex and simulations interplay between the mind, nervous system, and the body to expand the capacity for healing from traumatic experiences.
Utilizing cognitive, emotional, relational, and resource-oriented therapies in tandem, the Embodied Behavioral Resource Model has a potent therapeutic effect, helping clients improve quality of life by soothing the nervous system, increasing psychological resilience, fostering internal freedom, and building reconnection to one’s self separate from the traumatic experiences endured.
