Counseling and Wellness Pathways, PLLC
1400 Coit Rd, McKinney, TX, USA
1400 Coit Rd, McKinney, TX, USA
Are you tired of playing the same intrusive unwanted negative thoughts and images in your head over and over? Does it feel like a movie inside your brain is stuck on repeat? If so, then you may be a candidate for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy.
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What do you love most about your job?
We will provide a safe, nonjudgmental, and supportive space for you to work through whatever you feel is important. As a team we will collaborate on goals and discover the tools you need to reclaim your life. You deserve to be heard and understood. Counseling will bring you clarity, purpose, and peace. We are here when you are ready to take that next step.
What inspired you to start your own business?
I have incredible mentors and colleagues who have inspired and encouraged me to become a business owner. Texas Woman's University and Texas A&M Commerce equipped me with the clinical skills needed to become an entrepreneur. I hope to inspire others to take the next step of being a business owner.
Why should our clients choose you?
HEATHER HESTER M.S., LCSW
Education
Heather Hester is a bilingual (Spanish) Licensed Clinical Social Worker (Texas License #63127) who has experience working with children, teens, and adults. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX and graduated with her Master’s degree in Social Work from Texas A&M Commerce in Commerce, TX.
Heather has extensive training in EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR is endorsed by the World Health Organization as a method of treating PTSD. She is highly skilled in supporting adolescents, parents, and working adults heal from childhood trauma and work through symptoms of anxiety and depression. Therapeutic skills include CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy), mindfulness-based therapy, grief counseling, family systems, crisis intervention, and trauma treatment.
Experience
Heather has taught at the university level for TWU-UNT joint Master of Social Work degree program and has supervised bachelor and master level social workers since 2016. Heather enjoys working with teens and young adults. She has specialized training in working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Heather works to support people by non-judgmentally meeting them where they are and walking alongside them to discover and empower their true potential. She skillfully helps clients work through life challenges such as trauma, abuse neglect, self-harming behaviors, physical aggression, depression, anxiety, grief, and/or loss, relational issues, adjustment difficulties, developmental delays, and insecurities.
Can you provide your services online or remotely? If so, please add details.
EMDR counseling services are offered online. WE HAVE IMMEDIATE OPENINGS FOR TELEHEALTH. EMDR Therapy available for children, teens, adults, couples, families, and groups.
“The past affects the present even without our being aware of it.”
–Francine Shapiro
What changes have you made to keep your customers safe from Covid-19?
Counseling services offered via TeleHealth or face to face.
EMDR
EMDR
EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION & REPROCESSING
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) is a form of psychotherapy scientifically proven to help people recover from trauma or negative life experiences. This includes post traumatic stress disorder such as military combat, first responder incidents, physical assaults, rape, vehicle accidents, and man made or natural disasters.
Additionally, EMDR can be an effective treatment for anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders and phobias. Phobias include; dog phobia, jelly fish phobia, snake phobia, flight phobia, travel phobia, operating a motor vehicle, vomiting phobia, choking phobia, wasp phobia, height phobia and affect phobia for someone who does not want to under go EMDR, blood injection injury phobia, dental phobia, other medical phobias, social phobias, agoraphobia, and mental irrational future feared phobias. Trauma is subjective.
There are 8 phases to EMDR
Phase 1 is History and Treatment Planning:
Phase 1 can take up to 1-2 session or more depending on the person’s history. This will help the therapist develop a treatment plan and know what items to target. A time line can be used to identify incidents to process. EMDR does not force the person to talk about their disturbing memories in detail. In fact EMDR processing can be completed in complete silence as long as the person can rate the subjective units of disturbance (SUDS) and rate the validity of the adaptive cognition.
Phase 2 Preparation:
Phase 2 can take 1-4 sessions depending on the trauma or diagnoses of the person and allows the therapist to teach new coping techniques to ensure the person can handle any emotional disturbances that may arise in or outside of session. Phase 2 allows for a therapeutic relationship to be established between the person and the therapist. Additionally, the therapist will provide education regarding how EMDR works by explaining the adaptive information protocol.
Phase 3 Assessment:
The therapist can help the patient identify the disturbing event and create a mental picture of the memory or incident. EMDR can work on a person with aphantasia. A maladaptive thought is then selected associated with the traumatic event and focused on. An adaptive thought is selected to use to represent the present. The therapist then asks the person to rate the validity of the cognition when thinking back to the disturbing event. Emotions are identified and the person will complete a mental scan of their body to identify any disturbing body sensations. Then the Subjective Units of Disturbance scale is completed. EMDR will lower the subjective units of disturbance and increase the validity of the adaptive thought.
Phase 4 Desensitization:
This is done by the therapist through eye movements, taps or sounds. This occurs until the subjective units of disturbance is a 0. During this process the person will experience other associations connected to the memory.
Phase 5 Installation:
The therapist will assist the individual focus and strengthen the adaptive thought and measure the validity of the cognition.
Phase 6 Body Scan:
The therapist will ask the individual to mentally scan their entire body and determine if there are any negative body sensations. If so, the body disturbance is targeted and processed until it is gone.
Phase 7 Closure:
A guided mindfulness technique is used to close each session. A log is provided to document any new thoughts, insights, or changes.
Phase 8 Reevaluation:
