Laureca Schofield (she/her)

Working with teens who have severe mental health symptoms, DBT has been a go to treatment modality for me as it helps them to slow down, understand their emotions, and do something healthy and safe in order to manage them. It provides a guide in helping teens and adults to manage their emotions in productive ways while not trying to dismiss or get rid of their emotions entirely. Emotions exist for all of us and are inescapable. We all have to figure out how to manage them to keep going forward.

CBT is such a valuable modality for helping people to understand the impact of their thoughts, how those thoughts developed, and how to change them. Thoughts have such a far reaching impact that is often overlooked as we aren't naturally taught these skills as we develop. CBT is so vital in my work with individuals who are processing trauma as well as parents and caregivers who are trying to understand the choices their child is making. CBT helps to give insight and understanding to behaviors.

In order to truly help a child heal, the family has to heal also. Family therapy is critical in helping a family to move through the hardships they have faced and find safety and connection with one another again. Family therapy is how the family grows and changes together. How they decide on how things should go at home and work through barriers. My multiple approaches to family therapy and focus on family culture helps my clients to feel like they have real tools to address their concerns.

I have spent over 8 years providing weekly family therapy to families with children struggling with severe mental health. I have training in both trauma therapies, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, that are brought into family therapy as well in family therapy models, Family Systems and Attachment Based Family Therapy. I also may bring in elements of an organization culture model, Sanctuary, to help families define their culture.

Trust Based Relational Intervention skills (TBRI) is a caregiving model that I have been trained in and utilize with the parents I work with to help them learn how to connect, empower, and correct their children's behaviors. Parenting takes a tremendous amount of sustained effort and is a true investment of our time. It is also not something that we should have to do on our own. There is no manual telling us how to do this and learning how to parent well is a life-long journey as kids change.

I have sought out training in 3 trauma modalities to ensure I can meet the needs of both my teen and adult clients. Not one modality will fit for everyone and we don't always know that until we try. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and Cognitive Processing Therapy all give clients a roadmap for how to process through all that has happened to them. It allows you to start to be yourself without trauma symptoms controlling your life.