Psychotherapy
Trauma-Informed Approach
Healing That Honors the Whole Body-Brain System
Psychotherapy at WellMind is grounded in trauma-informed, evidence-based care that honors the nervous system and the pace of healing. We work with children, adolescents, adults, and families to support emotional regulation, insight, and meaningful change.
Psychotherapy may be helpful if you’re experiencing:
Trauma or chronic stress
Anxiety or panic
Depression or low mood
- Poor sleep quality
Emotional dysregulation
Relationship or identity concerns
Difficulty processing past experiences
How We Address Personality DisordersUnderstanding underlying experiences and patterns
Personality patterns can profoundly influence how individuals understand themselves, navigate relationships, and respond to perceived rejection, criticism, abandonment, or threats to their sense of self.
At WellMind, we work with individuals experiencing difficulties associated with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and narcissistic personality patterns. We recognize that these patterns may be influenced by early adverse experiences, attachment disruptions, learned protective responses, temperament, and other developmental factors.
Our approach goes beyond identifying behaviors. We explore the experiences, beliefs, and emotional responses that may continue to shape how a person relates to themselves and others.
When clinically appropriate, EMDR can help address distressing memories and experiences that contribute to persistent emotional reactions and negative beliefs about the self. Combined with other evidence-based therapeutic approaches, this work can support greater self-awareness, emotional flexibility, healthier relationships, and meaningful behavioral change.
Safety Matters. So Does Understanding What Drives the Pain.
At WellMind, we take suicidal thoughts and emotional crises seriously. We assess risk, collaborate on safety planning, and coordinate appropriate support for veterans, active-duty service members, and others experiencing significant distress.
Safety planning can be essential, particularly when risk returns. But our work does not stop at managing symptoms. When clinically appropriate and after stabilization, we also explore the traumatic experiences, moral injuries, painful beliefs, and present-day triggers that may contribute to feelings of hopelessness or a desire to escape emotional pain.
The need for this work is significant. In 2024, an average of 17.7 U.S. veterans died by suicide each day. Cerel and colleagues estimated that approximately 135 U.S. adults are exposed to each suicide death, meaning they knew the person who died. Exposure does not necessarily mean bereavement.
At WellMind, our commitment is to provide immediate support when needed while helping clients address the experiences that continue to fuel their distress. By supporting individual healing, we hope to strengthen families, relationships, and the communities we serve.
Sources: VA 2026 Annual Report, 2024 data; Cerel et al., How Many People Are Exposed to Suicide? Not Six.
Deep Brain Reorienting Therapy
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR): Working With the Brain’s Earliest Responses to Threat
Developed by Dr. Frank Corrigan, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a gentle, body-focused approach to processing traumatic shock. DBR draws on an understanding of the brain’s early orienting and threat responses, which may arise before conscious thought or emotional interpretation. By carefully attending to the physical sensations associated with these responses, DBR offers a way to explore experiences that can be difficult to access through words alone.
Unlike traditional talk therapy, DBR does not require retelling traumatic events in detail. Instead, therapy focuses on subtle body-based signals that emerge when the nervous system detects threat. With guidance from your clinician, you may briefly notice a recent trigger and then gently track physical sensations (often around the eyes, forehead, or base of the skull) that reflect the nervous system’s initial orienting response.
In DBR, the clinician guides the individual in slowly and carefully attending to physical sensations associated with orienting, tension, and shock responses. Within the DBR model, this process is understood as supporting the processing of trauma-related responses that may have remained unresolved. The therapeutic goal is to reduce distress and support greater emotional regulation, flexibility, and a sense of safety. Each person’s experience and response to treatment may differ.
DBR may be considered for individuals experiencing trauma-related symptoms such as dissociation, hypervigilance, or persistent physiological responses to perceived threat. It may also be explored when other trauma-focused approaches have been difficult to tolerate. Treatment is individualized, with careful attention to emotional regulation, stabilization, and each person’s capacity to engage in trauma processing.
Beyond the Reaction. Closer to the Source.
How is DBR different from other trauma therapies?
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) focuses on the earliest automatic responses that occur when something feels threatening or emotionally significant, often before we consciously recognize an emotion. Rather than beginning with the story of what happened, DBR follows subtle orienting and tension responses in the body.
At WellMind, this approach reflects our commitment to working with the underlying processes that may continue to drive familiar emotional and relational patterns.
What does DBR therapy feel like?
DBR is slow, focused, and guided by what you notice in your body. Your therapist will invite you to bring to mind a recent situation that triggered a strong reaction, then gently guide your attention toward subtle tension or sensations around the eyes, forehead, or base of the neck.
You do not need to force an emotion or make something happen. The process unfolds at a pace guided by your responses and clinical needs.
Will I have to relive painful memories?
DBR does not typically begin by asking you to revisit or describe traumatic memories in detail. Instead, therapy often starts with a present-day trigger, such as a moment of rejection, conflict, or fear.
By carefully following the early bodily responses connected to that trigger, deeper emotional experiences and earlier memories may emerge naturally.
Your therapist guides the process without requiring you to relive or retell your trauma, while helping you remain oriented and engaged in the present.
EMDR Therapy
Eye-Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR): What happened to you matters, and trauma reflects how those experiences are held in the nervous system.
Trauma is not a weakness or a failure of thinking; it reflects how the brain and nervous system learned to respond to adverse experiences. When something overwhelming occurs, the nervous system automatically activates protective responses such as fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown. For some individuals, these protective responses remain active long after the event has passed, even when the present environment is safe.
Following a traumatic experience, reminders of what happened may continue to trigger intense emotional and physiological responses, even when the person is no longer in danger. Within the EMDR framework, these reactions are understood in relation to distressing memories that have not been fully adaptively processed. For example, someone who nearly drowned may experience intense anxiety around water long after the event. Although the original danger has passed, reminders can still activate fear, hypervigilance, or avoidance.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured, evidence-based psychotherapy designed to help individuals process distressing memories and experiences. During EMDR, clients may focus on aspects of a memory while engaging in bilateral stimulation, such as guided eye movements, alternating tactile stimulation, or auditory tones. Within the EMDR framework, this process is intended to support adaptive memory processing, allowing distressing experiences to become less emotionally activating over time. Treatment may support new perspectives, emotional regulation, and a greater sense that the experience belongs to the past rather than the present. Individual responses and outcomes vary.
EMDR is an evidence-based psychotherapy recommended for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in clinical practice guidelines, including those developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense (VA/DoD), as well as the World Health Organization (WHO). Many clients appreciate that EMDR does not require recounting every detail of a traumatic experience. Instead, the focus is on regulation, integration, and restoring a sense of safety and choice in the present.
Your Questions. Deeper Understanding.
How is EMDR different from traditional talk therapy?
Talking about your experiences can help you understand your patterns. EMDR goes further by working with distressing memories and the beliefs, emotions, and responses connected to them.
At WellMind, we aim to understand and address what may be driving your symptoms, rather than focusing only on how to manage them.
Do I have to tell my therapist everything that happened?
No. EMDR can be conducted using approaches that do not require you to disclose the specific details of a traumatic experience.
Your clinician still needs enough information to assess your needs, guide treatment, and support your safety. The processing is your experience, and you can discuss your privacy preferences with your therapist.
Can EMDR help when I understand my patterns but still react the same way?
This is one reason people explore EMDR. You may understand intellectually that an experience is over yet continue to experience automatic emotional or physical reactions.
EMDR may help process distressing memories and associated responses so earlier experiences have less influence over the present.
What happens during an EMDR session?
Your clinician begins with assessment and preparation. During focused processing, you may attend to aspects of a distressing memory while engaging in guided eye movements, alternating sounds, or tactile stimulation.
Your therapist helps guide the process and checks in with you throughout treatment. The pace is individualized.
Does EMDR get to the root of the problem?
At WellMind, we strive to understand the experiences and patterns underlying a person's difficulties.
EMDR can help address distressing memories and learned responses that contribute to present symptoms. Not every difficulty has the same underlying cause, so treatment begins with thoughtful assessment and individualized planning.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies:
Supporting Insight, Skill-Building, and Change
Cognitive and behavioral therapies focus on helping individuals understand patterns of thinking, emotion, and behavior, while developing practical strategies for change. At WellMind, this work may include challenging and reframing unhelpful thoughts, developing insight, strengthening attention and focus, and implementing behavioral strategies such as exposure-based approaches, mindfulness practices, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills, behavioral activation, and sleep-supportive routines.
At WellMind, cognitive and behavioral therapies are thoughtfully integrated into an individualized treatment approach. Depending on each client’s needs, these strategies may be used independently or alongside trauma-focused and nervous-system-informed therapies. As clients develop greater awareness, emotional regulation, and flexibility, they can practice new ways of thinking, responding, and relating to others. Our goal is to help clients translate therapeutic insight into meaningful, sustainable changes in everyday life.
Not Sure Which Path Fits?
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