SANDUSKY — Firelands Regional Medical Center Counseling & Recovery Services is expanding its options and will now be offering eye movement desensitization and reprocessing intervention to its list of mental health services.
This form of psychotherapy assists people in healing from disturbing life experiences causing psychological trauma. It said to transform the meaning of painful events on an emotional level.
Trauma can happen anytime in life. Examples of trauma may include losing a loved one, being involved in an accident or natural disaster, or witnessing or experiencing violence. Trauma, left untreated, can result in mental and physical health concerns including depression, anxiety, insomnia and pain.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is an evidence-based practice that reduces the negative impacts of trauma by pairing various memories and images associated with the trauma with stimulation, such as eye movements or hand tapping. This stimulation has the resulting effect of reducing the intensity of the emotions that occur when future traumatic memories and thoughts surface.
The services at Firelands Counseling & Recovery Services are funded, in part, by the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties; Mental Health & Recovery Board of Erie County; Mental Health, Addiction and Recovery Services Board of Lorain County; and the Huron County Board of Mental Health & Addiction Services.
Through the support from the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Seneca, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties, and several of the boards mentioned, the following Firelands Regional Medical Center Counseling & Recovery Services clinicians have received training in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing:
• Fremont office: Andrea Kauble and Jessica Richards
• Lorain office: Martina Trevino
• Norwalk office: Jill Palmerton, Jodi Ohm and Juliet Russell
• Port Clinton office: Tabby Mowel
• Sandusky office: Julie Didion, Shelby Ryan, Bonnie Hayes, Cheryl Gerber and Ellen Miles
• Tiffin office: Scott Williams, Amanda Hass, Josh Bower and Erin Jensen-Skeel
Firelands Counseling & Recovery Services provide a full spectrum of outpatient and inpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment options in Erie, Huron, Ottawa, Sandusky, Seneca, Wyandot and Lorain Counties.