Archive | EMDR

Kathleen Krol, MSS, LCSW, RPT-S

KathleenKrolKathleen Krol is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor, and Certified EMDR Therapist.

She has over 20 years of experience providing individual and family therapy to children, adolescents, and adults. She specializes in family-play therapy and play integrated EMDR with children. Other specialties include EMDR with all ages, trauma, anxiety, depression, grief/loss, life transitions, and interpersonal issues. She provides clinical supervision and consultation for clinicians.

My Education and Background

Kathleen earned her masters’ degree from Bryn Mawr College, with specialization in clinical treatment with individuals and families. As a post-graduate, she completed a three-year clinical training and mentoring program at the Family and Play Therapy Center, in Philadelphia. Kathleen is clinically trained in Contextual Family Therapy (8 years), Trauma Focused therapy, EMDR and Advanced EMDR with children and teens, Play Therapy and Child therapyTrauma Art Narrative TherapyFilial Family Therapy and Exposure and Response Prevention.

The direction that led me to my current private practice, began with work at an outpatient partial hospital program, and mental health and substance abuse inpatient treatment through Temple Hospital East/Neumann Medical Center. I have extended experience working with children, adolescents, and families in crisis and at substantial risk through NorthEast Treatment Center and Consortium Mental Health Center. Through my roles as a school-based therapist, outpatient therapist, and Family Based Lead Clinician, I had the opportunity to collaborate and treat individuals and families at all levels of mental, emotional, and behavioral needs in schools, community mental health and in the home. Additionally, I have 12 years’ experience as an EAP specialist.

Family and Child Centered Therapy

Typical therapy sessions begin with a comprehensive developmental and life history to identify and resolve “root” causes of problems to promote long-term healing. Treatment includes family therapy with the parent and child together, individual play therapy or sand tray therapy with the child, and parent coaching and feedback sessions.

Family Therapy

My work is with the family as well as with the child or adolescent. My family focused approach to treatment looks at both the immediate problem and the underlying causes. Through training and experience, I understand how unless the ‘root’ causes of the problem are addressed, symptoms will cease only temporarily, manifest in different behaviors later or develop in another family member. I recognize that problems or behaviors exhibited by one child often impact other members of the family and when family dynamics may play a role in their continuation.

Play Therapy and Sand Tray Therapy

As a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, Kathleen establishes an environment that feels safe and supportive for each child. She facilitates healing through play therapy and sand tray, which are the child’s tools for communication and self-expression. The play therapy process allows the child to self-regulate their emotions, increase self-confidence, develop mastery and adaptive skills, and promotes healing and restored health.

I enjoy using play and sand in my work with children and find myself blessed to observe the healing process as it unfolds. I strive to be open to the unique characteristics and resources of each family with whom I work.

Filial Family Therapy

Filial family therapy trains and coaches parents through child-centered play sessions on how to better engage with their children. Parents are then able to continue strengthening their relationship and incorporate more structure at home.

Kathleen Krol's Sand Tray Office

Kathleen Krol’s Sand Tray Office

Trauma Informed Therapy and EMDR

Trauma may come from a single traumatic event, series of events or chronic abuse, each of which may cause deep lasting effects. There can be smaller “T’s” or trauma which although one time or brief, can still cause negative impact on functioning, along with one’s belief and feelings about oneself. I use a trauma informed lens in identifying the underlying root of client’s presenting issues and symptoms. Based on comprehension of the underlying trauma, together a treatment plan is developed with the client; utilizing a trauma informed therapy including EMDR, Trauma Art Narrative Therapy, CBT, or Sand Focusing work.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)

When a traumatic event occurs, pieces of the trauma can remain stuck or frozen in the brain and nervous system. Bilateral stimulation techniques help “unlock stuck material” thereby allowing the mind and body to process the traumatic event. EMDR therapy is utilized with significant or big “T” traumas but equally can be beneficial in alleviating symptoms of general anxiety and phobias or working through little “T’s” that can impact daily functioning, assist one in better managing stressors related to job, relationships, and overcoming roadblocks to growth and development. Preparation includes developing resources in containment of difficult emotions and relaxation techniques.

Focusing Sand Tray Therapy

This is a specialized means of using sand tray therapy that allows one to focus specifically on a problem, issue or fear. It might be a problem or place where one feels continuously stuck. This sand tray approach uses mindfulness meditation techniques combined with guided exploration or dialogue leading to deeper insight into the problem, issue or fear. It involves tuning into one’s somatic (body) experience and feeling affect awareness. The experience of Focusing Sand Tray can be profoundly meaningful. Individualized Sand Tray sessions offering self-awareness, clarity and self-growth can be scheduled for one or more sessions.

Trauma Art Narrative Therapy

Trauma Art Narrative Therapy is a structured cognitively oriented technique, which uses art as a modality for healing from trauma. Traumatic memories are often disconnected and fragmented. Trauma art pieces together these memories by guiding one to narrate the traumatic event through a series of sequential drawings. As one draws “snapshots” of the event, integration of the emotional and cognitive components of the brain takes place and promotes healing. Preparation for trauma work always includes establishing safe points before and after the trauma. TANT is effective with minor single incidents to major traumatic events that have had a significant impact. Artistic ability is not necessary and more spontaneous drawing is most effective.

Supervision for Play Therapists and Social Workers

Kathleen Krol, LCSW, RPT-S, provides clinical supervision for social workers towards their LCSW licensure or for play therapists seeking guidance or earning hours towards their Registered Play Therapist credential. Kathleen has over twenty years’ experience in diverse client settings including inpatient and outpatient mental health, home, and school-based settings. Her strong background in Contextual Family Therapy and trauma enriches the case conceptualization process.

In supervising Social Workers and Play Therapists, she practices from a child centered play therapy approach combined with knowledge of developmental stages and their connection to subsequent trauma and attachment issues. Supervisees will have the opportunity to enhance their clinical skills using Sand Tray Therapy and learning concrete strategies when coaching and providing feedback to parents. Supervisees seeking to work with a broad range of clients will benefit from her experience with clients across the age and life spectrum along with individual and family therapy treatment approaches. She supports therapists in varied stages of practice to grow and sustain healthy work/life balance.

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Jen Perry, MSEd, MA, LPC

JenPerryJen Perry is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Life Coach, and Mindfulness Meditation Teacher.

Jen Perry holds Masters Degrees in Psychology in Education from the University of Pennsylvania (2000) and in Clinical Psychology from La Salle University (2006).

A Heartful Approach to Helping

Jen Perry builds on her clients’ values and strengths and teaches them mindfulness and creative problem-solving skills, empowering them to find authentic self-expression in the world. Her approach balances the desire for personal growth and change with acceptance and loving-kindness for self and others.

In all her work, Jen brings a gentle and big hearted presence to assist with the overall health and well being of her clients. She has her own dedicated mindfulness practice, which she considers a vital component of her work.

For over fifteen years, Jen has worked in a variety of settings including schools, wilderness and residential programs for teens, employee assistance programs, hospital units including inpatient and outpatient oncology, emergency medicine, and private practice.  She has assisted individuals, families, and groups facing difficult challenges.

These have included:

  • people struggling to manage anger and resolve conflicts well;
  • adolescents coming of age in this fast-paced and sometimes overwhelming world; and
  • individuals coping with major life transitions, such as parenting at all stages, college-age transitions, life after trauma, adjusting to health changes and disability, and end of life issues.

Jen is acutely sensitive to cultural, religious, and lifestyle differences.

Psychotherapy

Mindfulness and Acceptance-based in-person psychotherapy helps heal the body and mind with gentleness and insightful techniques that support the whole person. Using heartfelt values as an anchor, therapy is a process by which we creatively build on personal strengths to overcome trauma and major life transitions, grief and loss, learned patterns of anxiety and depression, and problematic ways of relating to self and others.

Peaceful Parent Coaching

Jen offers a ten week coaching program for parents seeking to parent consistently from a place of love and not fear. She teaches parents to identify their triggers, work constructively with anger, and build skills to enhance communication and connection between parent and child. Parents learn how to coach their children through tantrums and to set limits that peacefully stick based on family values instead of threats. A peaceful home is possible!

Life Coaching

Heartful Life Coaching helps people to awaken to the wisdom of kindness and compassion in their lives so that they can live, work, and love with balance and heart. Whether your goals are to parent from the heart, meet life and work demands with mindful balance, or stretch yourself to manifest your dearest life dreams, coaching can help you become more mindful, more compassionate, think creatively, overcome obstacles, and be held accountable each step of the way. Sessions are typically held over the phone.

Mindfulness and Meditation Programs

Jen has developed and led a variety of Meditation and Mindfulness classes and comprehensive programs.

Upcoming Offerings

Everyday Mindfulness Meditation

Many people are convinced that they cannot meditate. Come to this class and discover that everyone can meditate everyday. Mindfulness Meditation has been scientifically proven to have robust psychological and physical benefits even at the beginning of its practice. Learn to use these simple but powerful techniques throughout the day to skillfully meet life’s ups and downs.

Meeting your Self: Becoming your own Best Friend

Most of us believe that being kind to others is important. However, most of us treat ourselves with a degree of disdain and harshness with which we would never dream of treating someone else. In this class students will learn techniques designed to cultivate true acceptance, compassion and friendliness towards ourselves.

Mindfulness and Acceptance Training for Moms

Is being a mom harder than you ever imagined? Along with all the joy that becoming a mother brings there is also a whole new world of worry, guilt, and self-doubt. This can surprise and bewilder even the most dedicated mother. Moms often suffer in silence.  In Mindfulness and Acceptance Training for Moms you will gain support and learn techniques to witness and attend to your fears with love and gentleness so that you can truly be present as a person and a parent. Join us whether your child is 3, 3 months, or 30!

Radical Self-Care for Healthcare Professionals

Dedicating our lives to helping others is a noble and loving livelihood. However, caring for others and ignoring our own needs eventually leads to burnout and can sap the joy out of even the most promising career. Many of us have blocks when it comes to self-care. We know what we need to do but often have trouble taking the necessary steps to actually doing it. In Radical Self-Care for Healthcare Professionals you will receive support and learn techniques to meet yourself in new and caring ways.

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Elizabeth Venart, MEd, NCC, LPC
Founder and Director of the Resiliency Center

Elizabeth Venart is the Director of The Resiliency Center and a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Pennsylvania.

She is also a National Certified Counselor through the National Board of Certified Counselors.

Elizabeth has 25 years of experience in providing counseling, clinical supervision, and training services. For nearly ten years, she worked in non-profit crime victim centers providing individual and group counseling—as well as crisis intervention and critical incident stress management services—to women, children, and men impacted by traumatic grief and crimes of violence. Elizabeth also worked as a school counselor for seven years—at an independent school for boys and with an alternative school for children with emotional, behavioral, and learning challenges.

Elizabeth Venart’s counseling office

Individual, Couples, and Group Counseling

Elizabeth’s counseling specialties include trauma and anxiety, job burn-out and career transition, and working with people who are highly sensitive, empathic, creative, and intuitive. She also supports couples to identify current patterns and create changes that allow for greater compassion and intimacy.

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 uses a person-centered therapy approach in her work with clients—working as a facilitator and coach to help people 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.

Strategies and Solutions for Healing

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 overcome experiences of grief and trauma.

Cognitive Therapy

She uses principles from mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to help clients learn to identify how their thoughts can contribute to or help lessen their experiences of pain—and to learn various methods for slowing down their mind so that they can more fully experience the present moment.

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.

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 has undergone several advanced training programs on the use of EMDR with children, severe trauma, and dissociation. She is experienced in using EMDR to facilitate clients’ successful healing from trauma, grief and anxiety.

Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapy approach that recognizes and respects the complexity of each person’s inner world.  Inner conflict between parts (often recognized as having competing beliefs and desires) is often at the root of anxiety, depression, indecisiveness, and dissatisfaction. By listening deeply to all parts of self, we can have greater ease in our lives, greater compassion for ourselves, and less distress and reactivity.

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. When we begin to understand our inner conflicts through the lens of IFS and parts, we develop an ability to see our struggles more clearly and with greater compassion. In couples therapy, this lens leads to deeper understanding about habitual reactions and patterns and, ultimately, greater intimacy and connection.

Highly Sensitive Persons

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. Our work focuses on helping HSPs validate and appreciate their strengths and learn effective coping strategies for living in a world where the majority of people are not highly sensitive.

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.

Clinical Supervision and Training Programs for Health Care Professionals

Elizabeth provides clinical supervision and training programs to individuals, groups, and organizations and is available to provide LPC supervision to counselors seeking licensure. She has over ten years of experience 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 and the development of personal insights.Her training specialties include trauma, vicarious trauma, counselor wellness, team-building in organizations, and creativity development.

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.

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