The words “trauma-informed care” get thrown around a lot in the therapy world and sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what that means. There isn’t a standard definition - as far as I have seen - and so it’s hard to know what to expect when someone claims to offer this approach.
Talk therapy is only one modality for working on trauma or attachment wounds. The mental health world is learning so much about the nervous system and ways in which we can regulate ourselves through somatic practice. This is one reason why we are so grateful to have Lauren Miller on our team. Lauren (they/them) is here to help us get beyond the words and to make peace with ourselves from within our own bodies.
Lauren is an incredibly wise, honest, and empathetic human. They have a ton of experience with helping individuals navigate a healing journey in their body. Sessions with Lauren are individualized and directive, moving at a pace that honors each client’s unique process. Lauren offers a focus on practical solutions to nuanced concerns --such as being able to discern the neurophysiology of a panic attack versus an anxiety attack and provide tools that are tailored to specifically support how the activation shows up in a client's specific body and mind.
I love that Lauren is approachable, extremely knowledgeable, creative, and funny. I feel at ease around them. They are attuned to the importance of boundary setting in a thoughtful, intentional, and kind way. It makes me feel safe in their presence. I also very quickly got the sense that they are the sort of person who can hold all kinds of hard things about the human condition without running away. I see Lauren as a brave, steady support system. They have the capacity to facilitate an experience that I would unquestionably consider a very trauma-informed approach.
When asking Lauren more about their work, they shared:
““One of my favorite practices with clients is to get curious about what is working, even in the murkiness of deep suffering, to find places of respite, resource, boundary, backbone or just more desired ways of being for them. From here we delve in to highlight and create personalized internal resources that are somatic, but have ties to other resources, like thought, emotion, visualization, gesture. All of us have some grace within even our most maladaptive coping.
I’ve been in private practice for 8 years and previously worked in various levels of clinical care, including contributing to a treatment team. I have a deep respect for what is offered in those settings and a strong commitment to what can be offered when we honor the client’s vision and somatic experience first.
I have also mentored a number of somatic practitioners and I get a lot of joy from this kind of work as well.
The feedback that I get from clients is that I am deeply attuned and hold a lot of faith in their process. They have said that often I help them find softness in places of rigidity or backbone and clarity in places of confusion and collapse. The most consistent feedback that I get is how helpful a really nuanced praxis of consent is and how this builds the shape of being able to find tools, resource, and insight outside of sessions.
I view myself as a practitioner, so I have a set skills and various forms of knowledge that I bring to session. I never think I know better than clients about their own life and I am deeply sensitive to power dynamics.””
Learn more about Lauren in their own words here and reach out directly by email or by clicking a button on their profile to schedule a phone consultation to see what they may offer you. Lauren will be offering TRE groups in addition to individualized sessions. Lauren is also experienced as an Herbalist and is well-versed on holistic care that can be integrated in your work with them.
They cannot take insurance, but they can see clients from anywhere in the whole world over telehealth. For those who can come in person, Lauren will be at our Asheville office on Zillicoa Street.
