Personalized Treatment
Starting with your first informational phone call, we will begin to discuss the combination of treatment methods we believe might best match your situation. By the time your clinical assessment is complete, you and we will have a well-informed roadmap for the direction of your therapy.
Every treatment method we use is practiced with polyvagal theory as its underlying foundation, so healing your autonomic nervous system remains at the forefront of your therapist’s mind. But not every patient responds equally well to each treatment method, and the same patient may respond differently to different methods over time. This is why we actively draw from a variety of treatment orientations throughout the course of your therapy, seeking your input and potentially suggesting changes along the way.
Some methods of trauma treatment teach us to change distorted beliefs that feel true, even though we come to understand during therapy that they cannot be true. Until our perceptions become more based on the facts, our distorted beliefs and interpretations unconsciously act to reinforce the “fight/flight/freeze” pattern of PTSD and prevent us from developing the resilience characteristic of a regulated nervous system.
Other therapeutic methods intervene directly on the neurophysiological patterns of “fight, flight, and freeze” that our autonomic nervous systems have been trained by the trauma to engage in. In these therapies, we learn to become more consciously aware of what our bodies are holding and to adopt skills for self-regulation, so that our nervous systems become more resilient and less hyper-reactive to external stressors.
The following is a partial list of treatment methods that, when practiced with a therapist trained in polyvagal theory, have the potential to heal your nervous system as it has been shaped by trauma:
Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD
Somatic Experiencing®
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
DBT Prolonged Exposure Therapy
Internal Family Systems Therapy
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (Tapping)
Psychodrama
Polyvagal-Informed Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Neurofeedback
Safe and Sound Protocol
Nest Behavioral Health is continually building treatment capabilities to remain on the growing edge of research of effective outcomes. If we cannot offer you a treatment approach that we think will help, we will either maintain your name on our waiting list or do our best to refer you to another provider.
People are empowered by the work they do at Nest. They go there completely unempowered. Then they learn to connect to their own power in relationships after working with their therapist there.
Maria Hendrickson, MA, MBA, ICAADC, ICCDPD, Family Clinical Specialist at Caron, New York
You Can Heal
Avoidance is the hallmark of PTSD and Complex PTSD, as it naturally protects us from feelings such as terror, grief, disgust, betrayal, powerlessness and shame that would otherwise overwhelm us. The unfortunate paradox of this pattern of avoiding deeply uncomfortable feelings is that it reinforces the cycle of “fight, flight and freeze” within our nervous systems, causing that elusive feeling of wellbeing to remain perpetually beyond our grasp. Eventually, avoidance stops working, and we find ourselves in need of another solution.
Our approach to the treatment of PTSD and C-PTSD leads you through a transition from habitual avoidance to autonomic resilience, restoring - or sometimes creating for the first time - your nervous system’s ability to more accurately read signs of danger and safety in the environment, and to respond accordingly.