Wendy Flores MS Individual Therapy | Wendy Flores Counseling

My holistic approach is customized for each individual.

I enjoy the process of helping individuals reconnect with the rewards of self-expression. I work mainly with those who have experienced childhood trauma. Gently, and with care, we will journey beyond the pain or confusion you are experiencing now to regain your optimism and energy.

I help people who suffer from Complex Trauma and the many symptoms that come with it, such as dissociation, anxiety, overwhelm, depression, and body pain.

I encourage you to invite your body to be a partner in the healing process. My aim is to connect you to a much deeper awareness of what you are feeling in your body. (Sometimes this is referred to as the felt sense.) By learning to listen to your body and its messages, you can recover from troubling pain and move into new power.

I can help teens and young adults get their life back on track.

An important aspect of my practice is working with adolescents, mostly between the ages of 14-21. I have gained broad experience and understanding in the last 20 years helping youth in counseling and educational settings. Because of the enormous potential for change, I usually ask parents to occasionally join our sessions once a stable relationship has been established. This gives everyone a chance to hear one another and enables the entire family system to experience change.

Most people see adolescence as a painful, awkward time in life. While this is often true, it is also a time when we are often our truest selves. Having a safe place to explore our feelings—be angry, sad, scared, afraid—is vitally important. For parents, know that your teen is in a safe, yet challenging space, which is invaluable to his or her emotional growth.

My Approach

My approach is holistic and is customized for each individual. The methods I use address your full range of healing potential. I begin by deeply listening to you. Very often, our therapy will have a “traditional” talk-therapy feel to it, but with some additions including:

Somatic Therapies
Somatic therapies work from a “bottom up” model rather than a top down one. In other words, somatic therapy looks to what is happening in the body in addition to the conscious mind. This is vital, because over several thousands of years, we have come to disregard or ignore our original biological programming that was designed to keep us safe: fight, flight, or freeze. Because of this, we often have a tremendous store of old, undischarged energy that can affect our nervous system in unpleasant ways, such as anxiety, depression, an inability to regulate our emotions, chronic illness, and pain. The somatic therapies can help you learn to tune into your body and feel what is really there, and also learn to safely release what might be stored.

Expressive Arts
At times, it is simply helpful to draw or paint what is going on inside. This is not about creating art. It’s about identifying and clarifying what clients are feeling.

Movement techniques
Moving in therapy can be really important. When clients are willing to move, they discover a lot from their bodies. Often, the movements are small. Sometimes, it is simply just holding a position for an extended period of time and listening to what the body tells us. Other times there might be some exertion involved. The rewards are usually significant.

Integration of other healing methods
I often recommend the addition of other healing modalities such as cranial sacral or acupuncture. We do this at your own pace and comfort level, and it is always up to you.

“Susan” came to me for therapy while she was in the midst of an abusive relationship where she felt belittled, dismissed, and where she felt like she was not empowered to assert herself or share her feelings. During our first session, I asked Susan to close her eyes. I asked her to do a mental scan of her body and see if she could identify a physical part of her body that was taking on the burden of this difficult relationship.

Susan pointed to her abdomen. “Right here,” she said, “I feel a big knot right in my gut, I’m all bound up.” Next, I asked Susan to use her body to express her feelings. Susan sat quietly for awhile. Then she got out of her chair and dropped to her knees. She dropped her head to her chest and folded her hands at her chest, either a gesture of prayer or surrender.

Slowly, and with care, we began to explore what the knot in the gut was telling Susan. By examining its shape, size, weight, etc., she was able to say what was in the knot, and what it was “the knot” wanted to express. Slowly, the knot unfurled and Susan was able to articulate what she really wanted, what she was afraid of (which soon became less scary) and what she wanted to say. Later, I asked her, once again, to show me how she felt with her body. Susan stood up from her chair, straightened her back, stuck out her chest and lifted her head high. The knot was gone, leaving Susan with a much clearer awareness, and freeing her body from old, restricting energy.