Offering therapeutic modalities for trauma resolution since 1997.
Sessions are currently only online or by phone and occasionally in person in Brattleboro, VT.
Clients are local or worldwide, including students of Somatic Experiencing seeking credit for certification.
LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC community welcome here! <3
QTBIPOC inquiries looking specifically for BIPOC therapists:
check out the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color network
In our sessions, it is common for people to explore deeply, laugh, learn more about their body's nervous system responses, feel safe, cry, feel cared for, and start to feel more of a sense of freedom in your body and mind. There is a lightness and simplicity with which we explore as to not take it all too seriously. You will likely have less pain, less agitation, less self-hatred and shame... more aliveness, more heart, more resiliency to deal with the everyday stressors and also more capacity to feel JOY AND PLEASURE. And I'm pretty sure that's what life is supposed to be like and that ALL people have that right. Everyone should be able to have their survival needs met and not have to fear for their life because they are female, queer, black, muslim, poor, or marginalized in any other way. Until violence and abuse are abolished, we can help each other through.
My Approach
Traumatic experiences often rob us of feeling joy, pleasure, connection, aliveness, creativity, purpose, and freedom... sometimes for decades. Its never too late to begin to heal, meaning reclaim or find these experiences for the first time. I get asked all the time, "Is it too late for me to change these patterns?" No. I have seen amazing things happen, no matter the age, and often times, the healing doesn't begin until later in life, when we realize a habit that was once helpful in "getting through" or surviving, doesn't cut it anymore.
In our sessions, there is no pressure to share anything you don't want to share or be any certain way. There is no right or wrong with this work. The most important thing is for us to find a way to work together that allows for curiosity and witnessing of what your body is presenting so that we can help it resolve/release/complete. Often with trauma, the autonomic nervous system is overwhelmed and "looping" in a habitual, unresolved fight/flight/freeze pattern. This can create chronic pain, syndromes, and mental health difficulties. This can be a result of many things including abuse of all kinds, injury, war, birth trauma, chronic career stress, oppression and and/or living in a racist, patriarchal, classist, misogynistic culture that does not value diversity, generational trauma, etc.
Letting the Body Take the Lead
When we explore by letting the body take the lead, amazing things can happen that the mind would never have thought of. We live in a culture that values the mind over the body but the body is infinitely wise and can heal itself when given the opportunity. You will learn how to attune to your body with loving care rather than resistance or fear, which are common among trauma survivors. We will work slowly because with trauma, by the very definition, there was too much, too fast, too soon and each millisecond of an overwhelming event is packed with high-intensity experience and sensation that has gone unprocessed, usually out of fear of being further overwhelmed. When we slow things down, the body has a chance to process, to digest, what happened, and start to recognize that the event was in the past and that time has moved forward. Sometimes it can feel like coming out of a fog. Colors seem brighter, senses seem more alive.
I integrate the following modalities to help support you:
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
A body-awareness approach to trauma resolution therapy through working primarily with the nervous system and not the "story", SE restores self-regulation and returns a sense of aliveness, relaxation and wholeness to traumatized individuals who have had these precious gifts taken away through shock trauma, developmental trauma, or other overwhelming experiences. SE is helpful for healing any form of trauma including accidents/injuries, sexual abuse, medical trauma, surgical trauma, social trauma, near drowning, pre/peri/post natal trauma, physical/emotional/verbal abuse, anesthesia, and developmental/childhood trauma which happens through the years during which the brain is developing (across any of these categories). SE is also very helpful in treating physical "syndromes" that develop when unresolved trauma is held in the body over many years. A few examples of syndromes include migraines, fibromyalgia, chemical sensitivities, asthma, chronic muscle or skeletal pain, anxiety/depression, and allergies. The Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Certificate is earned from the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute over three years of training (216 contact hours) and a required number of personal sessions and case consultations/supervision. I completed my training in 2013. I also went on to assistant teach and co-found the Somatic Experiencing Working Group for Racial Justice.
How does SE differ from other therapeutic modalities?
I also am a teaching assistant for the Somatic Experiencing International professional training (nationally) and am an Approved Provider of Personal Sessions and Case Consultations through all 3 years of the training. I am approved to sign off for SE students seeking certification requirements and accept clients form all over the world.
Learn more about Somatic Experiencing here
A body-awareness approach to trauma resolution therapy through working primarily with the nervous system and not the "story", SE restores self-regulation and returns a sense of aliveness, relaxation and wholeness to traumatized individuals who have had these precious gifts taken away through shock trauma, developmental trauma, or other overwhelming experiences. SE is helpful for healing any form of trauma including accidents/injuries, sexual abuse, medical trauma, surgical trauma, social trauma, near drowning, pre/peri/post natal trauma, physical/emotional/verbal abuse, anesthesia, and developmental/childhood trauma which happens through the years during which the brain is developing (across any of these categories). SE is also very helpful in treating physical "syndromes" that develop when unresolved trauma is held in the body over many years. A few examples of syndromes include migraines, fibromyalgia, chemical sensitivities, asthma, chronic muscle or skeletal pain, anxiety/depression, and allergies. The Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Certificate is earned from the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute over three years of training (216 contact hours) and a required number of personal sessions and case consultations/supervision. I completed my training in 2013. I also went on to assistant teach and co-found the Somatic Experiencing Working Group for Racial Justice.
How does SE differ from other therapeutic modalities?
- employs awareness of body sensation to help people "renegotiate" and heal rather than re-live or re-enact trauma.
- guidance of the bodily "felt sense," allows the highly aroused survival energies to be safely experienced and gradually discharged.
- "titrates" experience, rather than evoking catharsis - which can overwhelm the regulatory mechanisms of the body.
- helps eliminate pitfalls of re-traumatization and questions about memory
I also am a teaching assistant for the Somatic Experiencing International professional training (nationally) and am an Approved Provider of Personal Sessions and Case Consultations through all 3 years of the training. I am approved to sign off for SE students seeking certification requirements and accept clients form all over the world.
Learn more about Somatic Experiencing here
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy
IFS is a psychotherapeutic model for working with different parts of ourself that may be getting in the way of us living our best/healthiest/most fulfilling life. If you have ever found yourself saying something like "part of me feels like _______ and yet another part of me wants to ________" then this approach will make sense naturally. IFS is an incredible tool for helping us feel less overwhelmed and internally conflicted when it comes to adaptive and survival responses and at its core, is based in offering ourselves deep care and tenderness. It can be amazingly effective for working with self-harming or self-denying habits/addictions/thoughts because instead of approaching from a "fix it" perspective, we approach from an understanding that these strategies are based in an intention to try to be helpful and survive. It is also important to see how internal parts of ourself are reflections of the external/familial/cultural/systemic influences we are immersed in. I completed by year-long training in Boston in Fall 2019.
Learn more about IFS here
Learn more about IFS here
EMDR
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) was founded by Francine Shapiro in the late1980s, originally designed to alleviate the stress associated with traumatic and overwhelming memories. It has been heavily researched and is an evidence-based treatment for trauma. I use bilateral stimulation predominantly in the form of client-led, cross-body tapping but also sometimes eye movements.
Learn more about EMDR here
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) was founded by Francine Shapiro in the late1980s, originally designed to alleviate the stress associated with traumatic and overwhelming memories. It has been heavily researched and is an evidence-based treatment for trauma. I use bilateral stimulation predominantly in the form of client-led, cross-body tapping but also sometimes eye movements.
Learn more about EMDR here
Brennan Healing
This work, developed by physicist Dr. Barbara Brennan in 1982, is rooted in extrasensory perception, Chinese medicine/martial arts, Hindu practices, BioEnergetics, and Pathwork. It uncovers the psychological, spiritual, and energetic aspects of health and disease processes while allowing habitual/unhelpful patterns to be changed, getting to know the true Self, undefended and alive with vitality. The Brennan Institute focuses on the students' deep personal processes and trauma-healing so that they may be more present and intuitive when working with others. I received my Bachelor of Science from The Brennan Institute in Miami in 2010. Brennan work is a holistic system that combines hands-on healing techniques with spiritual and psychological processes affecting every aspect of life. In addition to comprehensive instruction in hands-on healing techniques, the four year intensive training includes body psychotherapy, psychological process, deep self-introspection, High Sense Perception, the integration of the creative arts with the healing spirit, the development of professional presence and the integration of different healing modalities. Meditation, expanded states of consciousness, and personalized spiritual practices complete the full spectrum of the healing curriculum. It is truly the premier school for learning how to be a Healer.
Learn more about the Brennan Institute here
This work, developed by physicist Dr. Barbara Brennan in 1982, is rooted in extrasensory perception, Chinese medicine/martial arts, Hindu practices, BioEnergetics, and Pathwork. It uncovers the psychological, spiritual, and energetic aspects of health and disease processes while allowing habitual/unhelpful patterns to be changed, getting to know the true Self, undefended and alive with vitality. The Brennan Institute focuses on the students' deep personal processes and trauma-healing so that they may be more present and intuitive when working with others. I received my Bachelor of Science from The Brennan Institute in Miami in 2010. Brennan work is a holistic system that combines hands-on healing techniques with spiritual and psychological processes affecting every aspect of life. In addition to comprehensive instruction in hands-on healing techniques, the four year intensive training includes body psychotherapy, psychological process, deep self-introspection, High Sense Perception, the integration of the creative arts with the healing spirit, the development of professional presence and the integration of different healing modalities. Meditation, expanded states of consciousness, and personalized spiritual practices complete the full spectrum of the healing curriculum. It is truly the premier school for learning how to be a Healer.
Learn more about the Brennan Institute here
Herbalism
After two decades of self-guided study, I obtained a certificate in herbalism from the Gaia School of Healing and Earth Education in 2013 and integrate herbal medicine into my practice when needed. The plants and herbs are profound allies in my own daily life and I enjoy bringing their wisdom to the healing of my clients.
Massage Therapy (MT)
As a seasoned massage therapist in practice since 1999, my use of MT has expanded to allow it to be more of an integration tool for the psychological, emotional, spiritual, and energetic work. I have been trained in many styles of therapeutic bodywork and have a nerdy affinity for anatomy and physiology education. While I find the use of therapeutic touch an integral part of the process for some people, it is not used at all for others. It depends on what is needed because touch can be fraught with trauma for some of us. Sometimes we just slowly work our way toward that as the healing and reclamation of the body progresses.
Reiki
I would be remiss if I did not offer deep gratitude to my very first teachers of energy as medicine: Leslie and Rachel, a white woman and an Indigenous North American woman. They were teaching in New Haven, CT back in 1997 when I was a baby healer emerging with lots and lots of questions and a deeply intuitive sense of my purpose in life as a helper of humanity. Although I do not use Reiki specifically as it was taught to me anymore, Reiki is a Japanese method of utilizing Energy for deep relaxation, healing, and restoration. Between 1997 and 2005, I was initiated into the uses of sacred symbols and frequencies, including advanced techniques. I am a Reiki Master in the Usui lineage, trained by several masters in New Haven, CT, Santa Fe, NM, and Greenfield, MA. I acknowledge that the "western" version of Reiki is out of context and that while I honor the Usui lineage that I was trained in and my teachers held the traditions in a very respectful and sacred way, I do not hold the cultural context in my body and none of my teachers were ethnically Japanese. I do know that all cultures, including my own European and southern Mediterranean lineages, carry traditional healing energy techniques and that Reiki is just one name for it. In my lineages, these practices were lost, stolen, and murdered out of us due to religious, gendered, and capitalist reasons. Even still, I practiced using my hands as a healing tool intuitively as a teenager before anyone "taught" it to me and Reiki was the only "training" I found available that was accessible in the age before internet and in a city that was very much not holistically inclined! I hold the lineage sacred and am deeply grateful to my teachers.
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Due to the nature of deep healing work through the body, emotional wounds and memories will surface. This is helpful information that we can work with to find resolution. Also, because the physical and psychological are so closely tied, chronic pain and illness also need to be addressed. Therefore, I sometimes recommend that my clients additionally work with other practitioners in order to create a "healing team" to best support you. This may include acupuncture, "western" psychotherapy, chiropractic, allopathic testing and/or treatment, psychiatry, naturopathy, physical therapy, etc.
Lisa Newell
167 Main St. Suite 307
Brattleboro, VT 05301
802-380-0546
lisajnewell@gmail.com
167 Main St. Suite 307
Brattleboro, VT 05301
802-380-0546
lisajnewell@gmail.com