Sabrina Basquez (she/her)

I'm a Certified Trauma Professional (CTP) who has worked in and around traumatic situations for over a decade. I also have personal experience with trauma and recovery. I've studied to create a specialty in working with people who are struggling with secondary traumatic exposure, but the truth is, those of us most at risk for vicarious trauma have our own trauma histories. I work to help untangle those complexities for healing and resilience.

I have been meditating for over 20 years now. Meditation changed my life. My entire education from day one of my undergraduate studies, including a 3 months stay in a Buddhist monastery, has been focused on understanding how meditation is used to heal. Mindfulness, is just part of this ancient contemplative practice that has been developed for thousands of years. I use mindfulness and self-compassion as a basis for learning how to get our needs met, whatever they may be.

CBT, when used in conjunction with good compassionate care can provide a great basic structure to help explain why we think the way that we do, and how those thoughts relate to our feelings, body sensations, and our actions. I am good at using it and explaining it. However, I understand that understanding what is going on with you is not always enough. I use CBT with other therapies to build understanding that enhances deeper emotional work.

If you work in a field where you are exposed to the pain and suffering of others on a regular basis and you are experiencing chronic physical or emotional exhaustion, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, irritability, sadness, feeling numb, detached, depressed or like you are not important you may be experiencing compassion fatigue or what is often referred to as secondary or vicarious trauma. This is common amongst caregivers and you deserve the same care you provide to others.

I work with individuals who are struggling in their work or study environments. Often times these individual experience stress responses that can be tied back to traumatic or adverse experiences in their life. The way that we deal with stress if often tied to the adverse experiences that we have been through. This can have a large impact on our ability to manage work/life balance.

You feel depleted. Your personal life and/or your health is suffering because you work all the time. You may be feeling jaded, cynical or hopeless in regards to your job. You are not doing the kind of work that you are capable of and you may feel like you just want to quit.

Often when we come from unsupportive, abusive, neglectful, or oppressive environments we learn to be unkind to ourselves. Often we are not even aware of extent of our own internalized oppression. Much of my practice surrounds use of Mindfulness. In order to to be kind to yourself you first have to be able to see the suffering for what it is. I will help you create a compassionate voice for yourself.

EMDR is the gold star of trauma treatment. Whether you are having issues with an adversity that happened to you in your adult life or all the way back to your earliest years, trauma leaves scars we often can't treat with just talk therapy. S.A.F.E. EMDR can help resolve some of the oldest memories we no longer realize even effect us the way they do. If you are tired of talking and exploring and ready for really deep work I offer this service to you.