Kelin Hall (she/her)

There's a lot to figure out as a young person: who you are, where you belong, what you want to do, this whole "adulting" thing. It can also be really isolating when you haven't found "your people", or don't have the language to express what you're feeling. I love being a nonjudgemental, trusted adult in young people's lives as you figure all this out, and did so for the past 4 years as a therapist at the YWCA. I use a lot of humor and creativity to connect with my clients.

There's a lot to figure out as a young person: who you are, where you belong, what you want to do, this whole "adulting" thing. It can also be really isolating when you haven't found "your people", or don't have the language to express what you're feeling. I love being a nonjudgemental, trusted adult in young people's lives as you figure all this out, and did so for the past 4 years as a therapist at the YWCA. I use a lot of humor and creativity to connect with my clients.

There's a lot to figure out as a young person: who you are, where you belong, what you want to do, this whole "adulting" thing. It can also be really isolating when you haven't found "your people" or don't have the language to express what you're feeling. I love being a nonjudgemental, trusted adult in young people's lives as you figure all this out, and did so for the past 4 years as a therapist at the YWCA. I use a lot of humor and creativity to connect with my clients.

When we bear witness to violence and oppression daily in our work, organizing, or community, it impacts us. My personal experience in nonprofit legal services taught me as much, and inspired me to deep learning about preventing compassion fatigue. I understand that the systems and communities we are part of have as much to do with our resilience as our own actions. At my last workplace, I spearheaded a multi-year effort to create more structural and relational protective factors for workers.

I wish I could list “trauma,” not PTSD, which is a narrow diagnosis. To me, trauma is any experience or set of circumstances that harms our relationship to ourselves, others, and/or the world. Trauma can make it hard to trust ourselves and others, can erode our hope, and shut down our emotions. I am trained in body-based approaches, parts work (IFS and ego state therapy) and EMDR, and I integrate and move between them as necessary.

Our early relationships build a template for how we relate to others. Sometimes, our unmet needs from childhood lead to us feeling constantly anxious about our relationships, or that it's best not to rely on anyone. Attachment theory helps us understand our relational patterns, have compassion for ourselves, and work towards more ease and deeper connection in our relationships.

EMDR is an evidence based trauma treatment. This includes not just events like rape or war, but relational harms - bullying, a caretaker making us feel unloved. EMDR can desensitize traumatic experiences so they don't overwhelm us. Then it helps us to integrate these events into a more adaptive story about their meaning, unravelling the harmful lessons we thought these experiences taught us (i.e. "I can't protect myself," "I'm not good enough).

EMDR is an evidence based trauma treatment. This includes not just events like rape or war, but relational harms - bullying, a caretaker making us feel unloved. EMDR can desensitize traumatic experiences so they don't overwhelm us. Then it helps us to integrate these events into a more adaptive story about their meaning, unravelling the harmful lessons we thought these experiences taught us (i.e. "I can't protect myself," "I'm not good enough).

EMDR is an evidence based trauma treatment. This includes not just events like rape or war, but relational harms - bullying, a caretaker making us feel unloved. EMDR can desensitize traumatic experiences so they don't overwhelm us. Then it helps us to integrate these events into a more adaptive story about their meaning, unravelling the harmful lessons we thought these experiences taught us (i.e. "I can't protect myself," "I'm not good enough).

EMDR is an evidence based trauma treatment. It can address not only events like rape or war, but also relational harms like bullying or a caretaker shaming us. EMDR can desensitize traumatic experiences so they don't overwhelm us. Then it helps us to integrate these events into a more adaptive story about their meaning, unravelling the harmful lessons we thought these experiences taught us (i.e. "I can't protect myself," "I'm not good enough").

Our bodies hold stress and trauma. I love teaching about our nervous systems and how to care for them. I am trained in Yoga-Informed Therapy, and other tools to connect with our bodies. Theses provide opportunities to notice how we feel and make choices about what feels good. (No spandex required. We can do this in a chair.)

If you learn growing up that it's not ok to feel, that care is unavailable or unreliable, or that you'll harmed by the people you rely on for love and survival, it can be hard to expect to be loved in the way you would want to as an adult. This learning happens in our families, but in organizations, friendships, and society. I help folks heal from and cope with these experiences and work towards the reciprocal, secure relationships

There's a lot to be anxious about these days. I support folks to discern what's helpful worry that pushes us towards our values and what's noise that keeps us disconnected from ourselves and others. I facilitate client's healing the wounds that make present circumstances feel unsafe and unmanageable.

Often trauma gets stuck in our bodies or teaches us to disconnect from our bodies. I draw from yoga-informed therapy, polyvagal theory, somatics, and my own movement practices and lessons-learned. My approaches help people reconnect with their bodies in loving ways, listen to the insights our bodies offer, and release trauma that our bodies hold.

Our early relationships build a template for how we relate to others. Sometimes, our unmet needs from childhood lead to us feeling constantly anxious about our relationships, or that it's best not to rely on anyone. Attachment theory helps us understand our relational patterns, have compassion for ourselves, and work towards more ease and deeper connection in our relationships.

EMDR is an evidence based trauma treatment. It can address not only events like rape or war, but also relational harms like bullying or a caretaker shaming us. EMDR can desensitize traumatic experiences so they don't overwhelm us. Then it helps us to integrate these events into a more adaptive story about their meaning, unravelling the harmful lessons we thought these experiences taught us (i.e. "I can't protect myself," "I'm not good enough").

IFS helps us build compassionate and collaborative relationships with our emotions, patterns, and reactions -- our different "parts". It is a deeply consent based way of working with trauma other frustrations, led by the belief that all our "parts" have a positive intention for us, and are due attention -- even our inner critics, our dissociative parts, and the ones that keep us doom scrolling. By building relationships with our parts, we can hear their wisdom without them taking over us.