“Isolation is an underpinning of oppression, and by consciously staying connected with others, we are taking an important step towards trauma stewardship.”
-Laura van Dernoot Lipsky & Connie Burk
Amy Ray
MSW, LCSWA I they/them
EMDR Trained
As a practitioner and human, I ground myself in values of connection and liberation. I am committed to co-creating a tender and unique space for therapy. I offer a steady, intentional, and transparent presence while we navigate the treatment processes. My therapeutic style utilizes somatic techniques including EMDR, creative expression practices, and relational cultural therapy approaches in processing trauma, nurturing a connection with yourself, your community, and your values.
I discovered my passion for this work early in my career as a rape crisis hospital advocate. This role lit a fire under me as I witnessed the power of sitting with one another in dark moments. During my graduate training, I interned with Orange Country Rape Crisis Center and Southern Queer Survivor Network at the LGBTQ Center of Durham where I continued offering survivor care through support groups, individual therapy, and community engagement. I also trained in the Americorps Survivor Link program where I delved deeper into the prevention and treatment of IPV. I am passionate about empowering those recovering from abuse from intimate partners, caregivers, and religious systems, and have devoted my training and experience to this purpose.
I believe in keeping each other good company as we move through grief and change. Life is complex and healing is messy, winding, and beautiful work. It is one of my greatest honors to sit with individuals on this journey. When I'm out of the office, I love hiking, biking around town, looking for cool rocks, and goofing around with my two kiddos and community.
Email: ​amyray.therapy@gmail.com
Bari Resnick
MSW, LCSWA I she/her
EMDR Trained
My approach to therapy is eclectic. I see the therapy process as deeply collaborative and person-specific, which can sometimes look like being a different therapist with every client. That said, I am not a chameleon. I enter the therapy room the same person I am outside of it: a grounded, earnest, and carefully attentive person. I’m also a creative and extremely visual thinker. I often find myself mapping out conversations on a whiteboard, creating diagrams or inventing metaphors to help clients parse out and put language (whether verbal or not) to complex human experiences. These are qualities, or ways of communicating, that I bring as a person first, and that shape my therapeutic style regardless of the type of therapy intervention I’m using.
The primary theoretical base informing my work is a relational, psychodynamic process. I believe a nuanced understanding of a person’s lived experiences should inform the co-creation of a logic of change, and a path forward. I think it's important to look backward, to make sense of the ways in which coping strategies are developed as skillful adaptations to a person’s environment. I am interested in understanding the function and meaning of those adaptations before moving toward change-- honoring the wisdom and practicality of the strategies that helped someone to survive, as well as the possibility of developing new ways of relating to themselves and the world. This approach allows me to then collaboratively identify which tools (e.g. EMDR, DBT, IFS, CBT) will be most useful in working toward each client’s goals. I believe in demystifying therapy and in offering choice-- if I think DBT would be helpful, I'm going to explain what it is and why I might be suggesting it so that consent is built into the process moment to moment.
Every clinician’s therapeutic approach is the culmination of experience, training, and personhood, and like Amy, mine is heavily impacted by my work in IPV advocacy and support groups. Before transitioning into clinical practice, I worked as an advocate at Safe Horizon, a large victim services organization in New York, and spent many years facilitating support groups for adult survivors of child abuse. Over the years, I have completed extensive training in trauma-informed care, safety planning, and crisis intervention. I have also gained some language to describe the interconnected systems of oppression, of power and control, as well as liberatory theories of change and the possibility for tremendous joy in post-traumatic growth. I live in the dialectic between being a realist and a radically hopeful person. I don’t think therapy will erase pain, but I am deeply committed to helping people find ways to hold their experiences with greater ease and self-compassion so that they have more room for everything else.
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Email: bari.therapy@gmail.com