Elizabeth is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Pennsylvania. She is also a National Certified Counselor through the National Board of Certified Counselors. She is an EMDRIA-Approved Consultant and an IFS Approved Clinical Consultant and trains other therapists to integrate these two therapy approaches.
Elizabeth has over 33 years of experience in providing counseling, clinical supervision, and training services. Her first decade in the field included working in a non-profit crime victim center, providing individual and group counseling, crisis response, and critical incident stress management to individuals and workplaces impacted by violence. Elizabeth’s background also includes working as a school counselor for seven years—at an independent school for boys and at an alternative school for children with emotional, behavioral, and learning challenges.
A Person-Centered Approach
The foundation of Elizabeth’s work with individuals, couples, and groups is relational. Before any other work can occur in counseling, an atmosphere of respect and safety must be developed within the relationship.
Trusting in the power of individuals to find their own solutions to life’s difficulties, she supports people to discover and access their inner resources. Bringing a trauma-informed perspective to her work, Elizabeth recognizes that unresolved grief and hurt are often at the root of individuals feeling stressed, “stuck,” or unhappy.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy — and Beyond
Elizabeth recognizes that people come to therapy looking for information and resources to help them, especially when struggling to create new patterns in their relationships or working to achieve meaningful goals. She uses principles from mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to support clients in noticing their automatic and recurring thoughts and to get curious about the origin of deeply held beliefs. With awareness and curiosity, old narratives can be examined and understood within their original context. The stories we tell ourselves about the past impact the possibilities we perceive in the present and future. Together, we gently unpack these stories and begin to explore a more expansive view of the change that is possible. When we are caught in thought loops, self-protective vigilance, or patterns of self-criticism, it erodes our quality of life. While we may start by focusing on thoughts, the goal is to become more present and embodied so you can actively engage in and enjoy your life.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Internal Family Systems therapy is a therapy approach that recognizes and respects the complexity of each person’s inner world. Informed by his training in family systems therapy, Richard C. Schwartz developed this model in response to hearing clients describe “parts” within themselves and noticing how these parts often shared the beliefs and personalities of people in clients’ early lives. Like Gestalt therapy and indigenous healing traditions before it, IFS recognizes that having parts is normal. No one is simply one thing. Your multi-faceted personality reveals many different, even contrary, aspects of who you are. You may be serious, funny, hard-working, relaxed, introspective, creative, critical, and compassionate. How you show up in one environment may be vastly different from how you show up somewhere else. In addition to parts, every person also has a core Self. Self is akin to “wise mind” or “soul” and possesses qualities of calm, clarity, courage, confidence, and playfulness. IFS therapy focuses on getting to know parts and building a relationship between Self and parts. As this happens, you become more present and less reactive, and your perspective — about yourself and others — expands.
Inner conflict between parts with competing beliefs and desires is often at the root of anxiety, depression, dissatisfaction, and indecision. One example of an inner conflict that might arise among parts could be as follows: (1) Part of you looks outside on a sunny day and really wants to go on hike, (2) Part of you is determined to clean the house because company is coming tomorrow, (3) Part of you feels pulled to visit a sick friend, and (4) Part of you feels overwhelmed by the choices and just wants to stay in bed. As you understand your inner conflicts through the IFS lens, you learn what drives your parts and begin to appreciate them. Then, you can experience greater ease and flow. For couples doing IFS work together, this leads to deeper understanding about habitual reactions and patterns and, ultimately, greater intimacy and connection.
Elizabeth is a Certified IFS Therapist and an IFS Approved Clinical Consultant. In addition to using IFS in therapy with individuals and couples, she offers both individual and group consultation to therapists trained in IFS who wish to deepen their understanding and application of the model. This includes getting to know their own parts.
EMDR
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a comprehensive, trauma-informed therapy that integrates mindfulness, cognitive therapy, and insights from neuroscience to get to the root of the symptoms, triggers, and obstacles that bring people to therapy. EMDR therapy is incredibly effective in addressing recent traumas and their immediate impact, such as fear of driving following a car accident. EMDR therapy is also very effective in addressing painful childhood experiences that continue to impact people in the present. Research has demonstrated the efficacy of EMDR therapy with anxiety and phobias, PTSD symptoms, chronic pain, sleep disturbances, fear of public speaking, and even schizophrenia.
Practicing EMDR Therapy since 1999, Elizabeth is a Certified EMDR Therapist and an EMDRIA-Approved Consultant. She offers individual and group consultation to therapists seeking to strengthen their EMDR Therapy skills and gain certification. She is also a trainer through the Syzygy Institute, offering workshops that teach IFS-Informed EMDR to therapists.
Elizabeth’s approach to EMDR is greatly influenced by her love for IFS and the clarity it brings to all trauma work. IFS reveals the way each person’s inner world organized itself in order to navigate early life. In identifying patterns in the present, past hardships — and original coping strategies — are revealed. Knowing this, protective responses that can naturally arise throughout the process of EMDR are respected and the focus and pace of work is planned accordingly. The trauma processing in EMDR ultimately goes much more smoothly as a result.
Highly Sensitive People
Elizabeth specializes in supporting people who are highly sensitive, empathic, creative, and intuitive. Highly sensitive herself, she has a deep respect for the gifts and challenges of having a highly responsive nervous system. Highly sensitive people notice more details and process all they notice deeply. As a result, they may experience anxiety and overwhelm, especially in over-stimulating environments and during times of heightened stress. Highly sensitive people benefit from being seen, validated, and appreciated for their natural way of being. They thrive as they learn to appreciate themselves, honor their needs and rhythms, and cultivate practices they find restorative. Elizabeth provides a safe, emotionally attuned healing environment in which Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) can heal emotional wounds and move towards greater self-understanding and acceptance. Elizabeth’s book, Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self: An Internal Family Systems Path to Healing and Wholeness, published by New Harbinger in June 2026, is a workbook offering insight and practical tools to enrich connection with your innate wisdom.
Group Counseling
In her groups, Elizabeth provides opportunities for individuals to connect with others, tap into their strengths, participate in activities and discussions designed to promote greater self-awareness, and receive support in creating positive changes in their lives.
Laughter Yoga
Elizabeth Venart became Certified as a Laughter Yoga Instructor in 2011. Laughter yoga is a fun and uplifting form of exercise that combines playful laughter exercises with deep yoga breathing. The proven health benefits of laughter include reducing stress, improving mood, increasing cardiovascular health, lowering blood pressure, and generally helping people feel more relaxed and comfortable in their bodies and in the world. Elizabeth leads laughter yoga classes at The Resiliency Center, works individually with people teaching them laughter yoga, and integrates laughter yoga into her professional trainings and Resiliency Retreats. Learn more and register for her laughter classes on Meetup.
Clinical Supervision & Training Programs for Healthcare Professionals
Elizabeth provides clinical supervision and training programs to individuals, groups, and organizations. She has over 25 years of experience supporting and supervising counselors across a variety of settings.
Clinical Supervision
Her approach to LPC and clinical supervision is rooted in a humanistic, relational framework. She supports counselors in deepening their understanding of clients’ challenges and goals, identifying any obstacles to empathy and mindfulness, and providing concrete strategies to promote change. She helps counselors cultivate a trauma-informed perspective and invites them to listen for stories of resiliency. Elizabeth also provides career guidance to counselors as well as vicarious trauma consultations to both individuals and organizations.
Training Programs for Professional Helpers
Elizabeth has been providing training programs to professional helpers since 1996. She has presented at the local, regional, and national levels, and her strength lies in making the material come to life for participants through reflective exercises, dialogue, and opportunities for creative expression. Her training specialties include trauma, vicarious trauma, counselor wellness, team-building in organizations, and visioning workshops for meaningful goal-setting.
From 2003 through 2007, Elizabeth served on the American Counseling Association’s Task Force on Impaired Counselors. Part of her work on the task force included the development of effective intervention programs to facilitate counselor wellness and serving as a co-editor for a special journal issue on counselor wellness through the Journal of the Counseling Association for Humanistic Education and Development.
Elizabeth was an adjunct instructor with the Behavioral Health Counseling Sciences Program of Drexel University from 2003–2008. She taught Group Counseling I and II, Theory and Practice of Counseling, Assessment and Treatment Planning, and Cognitive Therapy II.
