The Safe Calm Place

Why therapy?

Children and parents naturally have a lot of questions about what therapy means and what the experience will be like. At The Safe Calm Place, therapy is first and foremost about finding healing within a safe relationship and making room and time for all feelings. Just as we learn addition before algebra and we read sight words before chapter books, we cannot achieve true emotional health without first learning ways to identify how we feel, communicate our feelings safely, and regulate our emotions during and after periods of stress.

One form of stress that I focus on in particular is childhood traumatic stress, or when a young person’s ability to cope is overwhelmed by a traumatic event and the symptoms that follow interfere with daily life. Young people experience trauma in many forms: separation from a caregiver, witnessing violence in the home or community, bullying, multiple moves and transitions, abuse of all kinds, neglect and more. Therapy for traumatic stress at The Safe Calm Place means children will learn about trauma, build skills for coping with distress and big feelings in order to process trauma memories. Parents will also learn more about trauma and how it impacts them, as well as how they can best encourage healing in their child.

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I believe that recovery from mental illness or trauma  can never happen in isolation and that children experience the most growth when they learn about themselves (and the world around them) in connection with compassionate adults. I know that therapy enhances and encourages the systems of healing that occur naturally in the body, and receiving treatment from one stressful experience can help strengthen the resiliency of a child’s response to any future stressor. Therapy becomes a singular place where education, discovery, emotion-regulation, and verbal, artistic, and written expression all support a child’s growth and healing.