Melissa Walker (she/her)

Complex PTSD is my passion and my calling. Specific areas of PTSD that I have a lot of experience in are: narcissistic abuse, religious abuse, childhood emotional neglect, and trauma from family of origin experiences. My goal is to not only be a safe person for you, but to help you actually release the burdens that you carry in your soul with a variety of evidence-based tools. C-PTSD is incredibly difficult to live with, but it is treatable. We CAN reduce the suffering you experience.

Did you know that more than half of women will experience symptoms of depression some time in their life? Depression is extremely common, but fortunately, it is very treatable. I use a wide array of tools for depression, including releasing traumatic/"bad" experiences from your past with EMDR or other mindfulness methods, renegotiating communication and relationship patterns, addressing issues from your family of origin, and working with your self talk. Depression is both normal and treatable!

Anxiety is part of the human experience. There is no one who doesn't experience anxiety at least some of the time. For those of us that experience anxiety that is out of proportion with our comfort level, there are a great many tools available to us. Body and mindfulness-based practices are usually the most helpful, but sometimes old fashioned cognitive stuff works well too. I treat anxiety by both reducing stress in the present, as well as rewiring the old experiences.

Anxiety is part of the human experience. There is no one who doesn't experience anxiety at least some of the time. For those of us that experience anxiety that is out of proportion with our comfort level, there are a great many tools available to us. Body and mindfulness-based practices are usually the most helpful, but sometimes old fashioned cognitive stuff works well too. I treat anxiety by both reducing stress in the present, as well as rewiring the old experiences.

Gestalt therapy is a fancy way of saying that the therapist uses your experiences and ideas and "plays" with them. Gestalt therapy is experiential: What is happening in this moment? And how do we work with it? In this method we take what you are feeling and thinking and interact with it. Sometimes we use this to re-negotiate old relationships or experiences, and sometimes we learn new ways of being in the present. We can be very creative and have a lot of fun with this method!

EMDR is considered the gold standard, state of the art treatment for trauma, and is also effective for depression, anxiety, adjustment disorder, and grief. I have a great deal of experience with EMDR and often integrate it with other modalities such as IFS, guided imagery, and body awareness to make it even easier and more effective. We all have bad experiences that stay with us--EMDR effectively "refiles" those memories and puts them in the past.

I discovered IFS when I was a graduate student almost a decade ago, when it was still not well known or widely used. I read the text book for an assignment, and I immediately began using IFS principles on myself. It is the single most useful tool I use for my own growth and healing. I love sharing "parts work" with others! We all have "parts" inside us: the inner critic, the hurt child, the part that compulsively puts out the bad feelings. Working with these parts can bring revolutionary change.