Emotional Abuse Therapy therapists in Bartlett, Tennessee TN

Kids are resilient, but… They often need help processing and coping with the experiences they’ve had or changes they may be going through. After experiencing emotional abuse, most children often don’t have the tools to cope and move forward (at least not in a healthy way). Maybe they didn’t seem bothered by these things at the time, but now (perhaps even months or years later), their behaviors suggest that something is wrong. During a life-changing experience, kids go into “survival mode.” And that can look different based on the child. During or immediately after a stressful event, a child’s brain may activate specific areas of the brain and de-activate others as a natural response to help them survive. Some children may have increased awareness and adrenaline, often becoming jumpy or easily startled. Others may struggle with the area of the brain that helps them regulate their emotions, causing them to have mood swings, emotional outbursts, or tearfulness. Many children begin to withdraw and isolate themselves. Children who are struggling to process or cope with trauma experience problems sleeping, such as nightmares and trouble falling or staying asleep. They experience intense feelings of anxiety that cause them to be on “overdrive” and always alert to potential danger. They struggle to process and communicate their feelings appropriately, resulting in meltdowns, tantrums, or isolating themselves. They are easily distracted and find their mind wanders, causing them to “space out” during tasks or conversations. They don’t know how to trust you (or anyone) because of what they experienced. A special therapy has been proven to help. Whether your child has experienced recent emotional abuse… or it’s something they’ve experienced in the past, I’m here to help. Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is a proven treatment to help children and teens who have experienced a scary or stressful event in life. This therapy will identify how trauma has affected your child and will help your child process stressful memories and develop ways to cope with thoughts and feelings related to the event in a safe environment. Children who have experienced trauma are frequently still “haunted” by lingering trauma reminders (or trauma triggers)… A fight at school could bring back crippling memories of a fight they witnessed in the past. Together, your child and I will identify and confront the trauma triggers that are still impacting your child. Your child will process the experience in a safe environment and develop skills to cope with the emotions associated with the event. Relaxation skills such as mindfulness, breathing exercises, and meditation will be taught and practiced with your child in sessions (and in language they understand). These will become your child’s defense against their big and scary thoughts and feelings as they continue to move through treatment. They’ll learn ways to manage their emotions and combat panic and anxiety related to the experience and how to identify their feelings. Your child will create a “feelings-scale” and begin practicing ways to calm themselves down (or bring themselves “back down the scale”) when their feelings become too much. They’ll begin communicating their feelings to you in healthy ways. They’ll learn why their former (and sometimes aggressive) ways of communication are unhealthy and often result in consequences, and they’ll replace those old ways with new skills such as using “I-feel statements.” As your child develops these skills, they will prepare to process the traumatic event head-on by completing a trauma narrative with my support. Through the trauma-narrative process, your child will confront memories of the situation and address unhelpful thoughts and core beliefs they have as a result of the event. They may think the abuse was their fault. Or that they are a “bad kid” due to the abuse they experienced. We will work together to process these unhelpful thoughts and core beliefs and change them to positive, true, and helpful thoughts. The trauma-narrative process is completely tailored to each child. Your child may choose to draw, paint, or use art to express their narrative. They may choose to write and sing a song describing their experience, or they may simply choose to write their story in narrative form. Your child is free to choose the best way that works for them. After this process, your child will have the opportunity to “destroy” or keep the narrative to signify their incredible and brave progress in moving forward. Throughout treatment, we will also work together to plan for any additional needs for your child outside of therapy (ex. behavior planning, safety planning, school safety planning, or supervision planning). Don’t let an event change the rest of your child’s life. I am here to provide help within a judgement-free, therapeutic environment. Are you ready to help your child change their patterns of behavior, emotional distress, and negative thoughts resulting from the binding impacts of a traumatic event? If so, give me a call today!  

Emotional abuse is an often hidden or hard to pinpoint type of abuse that may occur in our adult relationships, those with our parents growing up, or both. One definition of emotional abuse includes psychological (i.e. non-physical) behaviors such as threats, insults, constant monitoring or “checking in,” controlling, shaming, humiliation, intimidation, isolation or ignoring behaviors. You may also be dealing with childhood emotional abuse which can be defined as, 'sustained, repetitive, inappropriate emotional response to the child’s experience of emotion and its accompanying expressive behavior’. Healing involves speaking our truth, learning about connecting to our emotions, boundary setting, connecting to our bodies and beginning to create new ways of building loving safe relationships with ourselves and others. Depending upon your own history we may make use of variety of tools to heal, including somatic work, trauma work, journaling, boundary setting, inner child work, family systems work, art therapy, or many other paths that can lead to reclaiming your truth.  

As a psychologist specializing in the treatment of emotional abuse, my approach prioritizes creating a safe and validating therapeutic environment where individuals can explore their experiences and heal from the effects of abuse. Through trauma-informed therapy modalities such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and trauma-focused approaches, I help clients process their emotions, challenge distorted beliefs, and develop coping skills to rebuild their sense of self-worth and autonomy. Additionally, I provide psychoeducation about the dynamics of emotional abuse and support clients in setting boundaries, enhancing self-care practices, and accessing resources for safety and support. Collaboration with other professionals, such as legal advocates or social workers, may also be integrated into the treatment plan to address practical needs and ensure holistic healing. My goal is to empower individuals to reclaim their agency, cultivate resilience, and thrive in relationships characterized by respect and empathy.  

I work with people to evaluate their past so that they can be free in the present and future from the toxic core beliefs that happened to them and to learn how to shift out of the toxic core beliefs and learning how to be healthier themselves.  

When a person is in a relationship, personal or professional, it is sometimes hard for that person to notice emotional abuse until it becomes severe or someone else notices that it is happening. This is not the client's fault, emotional abuse usually starts very subtly with harsh comments or shutting down but these behaviors are often attributed to a bad day. Over time when a person hears harsh comments enough times they start to believe them. Therapy for emotional abuse is in part helping client's recognize emotional abuse and try to set boundaries, if it is safe to do so. Then we will work to desensitize, reframe, and replace those harsh comments with positive beliefs while increasing the client's sense of self-worth.