for veterans

While you might be safe at home now, it probably doesn't feel like it.

If you are one of the tens of thousands of "walking wounded" - veterans who have returned home, but whose psyches are, in some ways, still at war, you know what I'm talking about. It may feel as though the war is still happening inside you.

This doesn't mean you're crazy. Or weak.

The latest research in the field of trauma now verifies what many of us in the mind-body healing professions have known all along. Traumatic experiences and their emotional reactions get locked inside the body in a way that the logical mind and attempts at positive thinking and self-control can't touch. These researchers now confirm that "It's not over until your body believes it's over." This is where body-centered psychotherapy and counseling comes in.

Through natural, guided, gentle techniques, Shelly Smith will help you access where overwhelming emotions and memories are stored, and layer by layer, will help you release them in as gentle a way as possible. You will be given some skills and tools that you can practice on your own and will gain confidence in your ability to resolve and process strong emotions as they arise.

In addition to these body-centered approaches, Shelly offers the following evidence-based techniques for healing trauma:

These may be used in addition to or in combination with body-centered techniques in whatever way works best for you.

"After years and years of working in this and grappling with this, the conclusion that many of us are coming to is that in order to help these animal, frozen, inappropriate, fight/flight/freeze responses to come to an end, you need to work with people's bodily responses. You need to help their body feel like it's over."

― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

See video, Trauma and the Body: Shelly's Story, here.

Welcome Home

While you might be safe at home now, it probably doesn't feel like it.