Abbe Barclay is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified S*x Addiction Therapist (CSAT),(certified Partner Trauma Therapist ( CPTT) and has provided individual, group, couples, and family outpatient therapy services for over 27 years. Her areas of specialty and advanced training include couple’s therapy; communication skills; Imago relationship counseling; s*x and love addiction; chemically dependent family therapy; depression; anxiety; women’s issues; grief; divorce adjustment; and recovery from affairs. She also works with partners and spouses of s*x addicts, marital discord following discovery of s*xual addiction, and couples recovery from s*xual addiction. Abbe is trained in Emotional Focused Couples therapy ( EFT). This theory is based on attachment, in distress couples often relate to deeply rooted fears and unresolved pain. She is also is trained in EMDR and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) for addressing stress, trauma, cravings, and other mental health related issues. . Abbe is a consulting therapist to the nationally recognized Onsite Workshops, and has enjoyed being a part of the organization, facilitating intensives and several workshops including but not limited to Coupleship and Healing Love Addiction. No one knows how any form of psychotherapy works neurobiologically or in the brain. However, we do know that when a person is very upset, their brain cannot process information as it does ordinarily. One moment becomes “frozen in time,” and remembering a trauma may feel as bad as going through it the first time because the images, sounds, smells, and feelings haven’t changed. Such memories have a lasting negative effect that interferes with the way a person sees the world and the way they relate to other people. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a cost-effective, non-invasive, evidence-based treatment for conditions such as: trauma, panic attacks, complicated grief, dissociative disorders, disturbing memories, pain disorders, stress reduction, abuse, and personality disorders. Developed by Francine Shapiro, PhD in the late 1980′s, EMDR is an eight-phase treatment which comprehensively identifies and addresses experiences that have overwhelmed the brain’s natural resilience or coping capacity, and have thereby generated traumatic symptoms and/or harmful coping strategies. Through EMDR therapy, patients are able to reprocess traumatic information until it is no longer psychologically disruptive. EMDR works through bilateral movements using auditory, tactile (touch) or visual processing methods, similar to what is occurring during REM sleep, to activate the brain’s natural processing and healing capabilities. During this procedure, patients tend to “process” the memory in a way that leads to a peaceful resolution. This often results in increased insight regarding both previously disturbing events and long held negative thoughts about the self.
