Victoria Ford Counseling
EMDR and Somatic Therapist
Welcome!
I have a wait list for individual adults for an EMDR Intensive- virtual or in person, for June 2021 or beyond.
Victoria Ford, M.S., LMFT
EMDR and Somatic Therapist
victoria@waterstreetcounseling.com
As an EMDR and Somatic Therapist, I am trained to offer you a couple of different approaches to work through trauma or distressing experiences. Somatic Therapy (soma= Greek word for body) pays attention to how a body is affected as it is coming out of trauma and supports a new felt experience, regulation and resilience. EMDR Therapy is powerful in its ability to reprocess trauma and offer relief from disturbing images, nightmares or unrelenting experiences. Before we begin, an assessment is important in order to treat you with the the most excellent and kind care. I will tailor your treatment with the most safe and effective approach.
EMDR Intensive Therapy is an effective, focused and accelerated form of therapy. If you have experienced trauma, PTSD, relational trauma, chronic tension and stress, or grief and loss...EMDR Therapy is designed to address these problems. Somatic Therapy works with the same issues, in a different way that is also effective and quite gentle.
My commitment is to provide competent and compassionate assessment and treatment for you.
Contact me for an assessment to determine what is the best approach given your history, your current situation, and how your body is holding or reacting to what you have been through.
Read more about EMDR Intensives, benefits and research here.
If you would like to learn about EMDR Therapy, read more here.
Victoria Ford, M.S., LMFT, is an independent practitioner
How could this support you?
Contact me
Email me for FAQS and information on treatment and availability. I would love to hear from you!
Specialized approach
When the body remembers trauma...EMDR and Somatic Therapy are a powerful combination.
"No amount of talk therapy will undo what the body remembers; the trauma is stored outside of your thinking brain. So you can't think it out. An old survival response - in behavior, thinking, or emotional or physical reactions- might be running your show. It may have once been adaptive, protective or helpful to you, but it's not anymore. Sometimes defensive patterns are stuck in the nervous system and musculature. You deserve an approach that includes your whole person, especially when trauma is involved.
I provide that with EMDR Therapy and Somatic Experiencing therapy...these are evidence-based, effective therapy approaches. Your capacity to enjoy life, to take a full breath, to feel your own capacity and healthy energy for life is profound and possible. And the world needs you, uniquely you showing up as your whole self. When you're ready to work things through so that you can be more of yourself, I am here. I can't wait to meet you!"
- Victoria Ford, EMDR Certified Therapist
EMDR Intensives as Adjunct Therapy
Colllaboration: EMDR as Adjunct Therapy
We've all had those moments in therapy where we feel stuck or loop on issues related to negative life experiences. It can be discouraging for both the client and the therapist. Often times, when the primary therapist and client collaborate with an EMDR therapist, this partnership can help move treatment forward.
I partner with primary therapists and their clients to target their clients’ specific memories, body sensations, or limiting beliefs with EMDR. By narrowly targeting specific traumatic memories or intrusive material, brief adjunct EMDR can accelerate progress in traditional therapy, help the client and the primary therapist to resolve stuck points, and enrich their ongoing work.
Adjunct therapy does not replace or interrupt ongoing therapy; it is supplemental to the primary therapeutic relationship. With adjunct EMDR therapy, clients continue to receive treatment with their primary therapist. Usually adjunct therapy is short term. Treatment is often scheduled in an intensive format.
The success of treatment is based on clearly defined goals for the EMDR therapist, defined in collaboration with the primary therapist and client.
About Victoria
Co-founder of Water Street Family Counseling
After 12 years in community work as a Marriage and Family Therapist, colleague Carmen McHenry and myself founded Water Street Family Counseling together. We discovered this beautiful house in downtown Liberty, and had only dreamed of this very kind of setting. I think we may have skipped around in the yard. We were so excited!
We shared an agency office space previously, and for YEARS we had a picture framed in our office, hung right behind a couch where we saw it every day. The picture was a doorway with beautiful scenery, including a bicycle leaned against the home. The address above the doorway read "117." The exact address of our Water Street practice!
It was by design and in us all along, to come to this community in this historic home and provide a home-like atmosphere for ourselves and our clients. That bicycle represented movement, availability, transition and freedom. As in life, sometimes it takes years to realize the dream and destiny that is right within you. When the time is just right, the answers and opportunity line up and show themselves.
This is how Water Street Family Counseling was born - and evidence that there is always a future and a hope. There is a design that is working in the background of life if we can get out of our own way and reach towards the future that is meant to be ours. -When this is true, it benefits others as well.
I can help you connect more strongly to your own values and life principles too, in a way that fulfills and serves you, and others. I have had to sort through fears, doubts and stuck life energy to get to this place. And that continues, as we are always evolving. Thankfully, I received support from others including friends, family and professional therapists. You deserve support too; therapy is life changing. It's ok to reach out!
Experienced
I have 20 plus years experience as a therapist. I have worked in a community agency as well as private practice.
My years of advanced professional training focus primarily on EMDR Therapy, relationship trauma, Somatic Experiencing, and family systems...and my education continues.
I've learned so much since the early days. Experience actually does matter.
Compassionate, Competent and Skilled
I can help you effectively and kindly. How you are in the process matters; you deserve a kind, flexible and effective approach.
Human Being Experience :)
There is something beneficial about working with someone who has a healthy amount of life experience. That I do! Being a human is complex; there isn't a formula for this. I'll treat you like the precious human being that you are; complex, unique, amazing and messy at times, like all of us!
Personally - I am a mom, wife, adult child to older parents, sibling to a twin and a sister. I spend as much time in connection with them as I can, given we are spread out across the country! If not working I'll be camping or planning a trip, taking photos of a pathway, a bridge or some other inspiring and delightful scene to share and remember.
I take breaks to breathe and connect emotionally, mentally and spiritually - and come back to you a healthier, happier, more creative version of myself. I have learned to truly care for myself.
If I accept a new client into my practice it's because I have room in my being to be with you, and I look forward to that meeting.
Victoria Ford
Now offering flexible access to effective therapy.
For those who prefer therapy focused on change and soon, this is an alternative to traditional weekly therapy.
Find out how it may benefit and work for you.
There is a path right here.
"You can receive effective, professional support moving forward with your life. I know what it feels like to be stuck...there's something you can do about it. When the time is right for you, reach out and begin. We aren't meant to travel this life alone. You don't have to suffer and do this alone."
- Victoria