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Cheryl Sears

Cheryl Sears

(she/her)

LPC
14 years of experience
Warm
Empowering
Virtual

I have been a counselor for over 14 years, specializing in treating trauma, PTSD, and attachment wounding. I am trained in EMDR and DNMS. My training and experience helping people heal from attachment wounds as well as big and little traumas guide my overall treatment for struggles with depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, OCD symptoms, addictions and difficulties in relationships. I help people recover from common adult traumas of greif, being betrayed, being blind-sided, and even church trauma. Through DNMS I now offer healing from childhood wounding from having an overly critical, controlling, or an emotionally distant caregiver. I am grateful for many of my trainings which are guided by all that is being learned about emotional health through neuroscience, and provide very practical and interactive therapy treatment methods.

What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?

Together, we will identify your challenges in your life, while also recognizing your strengths. We can identify how any trauma, negative experiences or lack of good attachment in your childhood may be affecting you. Together we can develop a plan for the healing process, and let you know what to expect for the next session. In session I can provide you with resources and tools to use between sessions both to help your progress and also to grow your confidence in your own abilities to practice emotional health.

Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.

I am very encouraging as a counselor. I can see little steps of progress and give you hope and encouragement along the way. Even relapses can be a positive part of any change process. I am a good listener. I am patient to really hear you and understand what you are experiencing. I can lament with you, but always with a calm sense of hope that you will work through the struggle. I am genuinely passionate and optimistic about the benefits of counseling and trauma therapy as I have seen it help so many people, of all ages, various issues, and various levels of functioning. People will say that my face lights up as I start to share about the therapy methods I can offer and how beneficial they are. My focus on trainings that are based on neuroscience has given me understanding and tools to practically help many, both in everyday life management and in the healing from trauma. I use or have used every skill, tool, or therapy method that I offer, giving me firsthand experience of the benefits of all of these. My own journey of faith as a Christian helps maintain my own hope that we are all able to heal and grow. My various life experiences help me to relate to many people. I love people and I love my work.

About Cheryl Sears

Identifies as

Specializes in

Serves ages

Licensed in

Accepts

Appointments

Virtual

My treatment methods

EMDR

I offer EMDR, as a non-talk therapy approach to heal the brain from the impact of traumatic experiences, big and smal. Flash Technique is one of the EMDR methods that has been particularly helpful to heal from trauma that is still just too hard to think or ever talk about. EMDR helps move memories from the emotional center of the brain to where memories are usually stored, through using eye movements back and forth or another form of bi-lateral stimulation.

Attachment-based

We are learning so much more about how poor attachment with caregivers in childhood may affect us even more than trauma wounds. Many of you important development needs for loving care, sense of feeling understood and accepted, or having adults you could trust, were not provided in a way that was emotionally wounding. We call these attacment wounds. These wounds were recorded in the brain like a movie and then get replayed when similar negative stressors occur, bringing up the negative beliefs and emotions. A newer therapy based on EMDR and attachment theory is DNMS, Developmental Needs Meeting Stategy that offers a method to actually meet the emotional needs we had in the past, freeing us up to better handle present life stressors and navigate healthier relationships. I have seen clients get free now of excessive fears of abandonment, fear of failure, need to people please, tendancy to shut down in conflict, unable to take constructive criticism.

Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)

I use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, teaching specific strategies and skills to handle emotions, find heathy thought patterns, mindfulness, healthy core beliefs about self and world, and behaviors to help meet life goals. Clients report experiencing much improved moods, behaviors, and even improved relationships. I use this counseling method to balance out a focus on healing of the past with these skills to gain confidence handlng stresors in the present. It is like getting your Masters degree in life skills that we just haven't been able to learn anywhere else in our life.

Christian Counseling

So many Christians share with me that they painfully struggle with wanting stronger faith or wanting to sense God's love for them, but are very discouraged in their spiritual journey. I provide a safe place for people who are practicing Christians to seek and find help both for their emotions and for their spiritual health. Many of my clients have experienced much hurt and wounding in their religious group or their religious family. Our image of God may be very distorted due to poor experiences with our own fathers. My spiritual counseling approach is based on a healhty Christian wordview. The DNMS therapy has been a profoud method to heal past wounds and start to remove the barriers to receiving or trusting in God's love and care, in order to begin to find the growth and victory in life that you have hoped and longed for.