For Professionals & Clinicians

About Joy

Somatic Experiencing Sessions

My “Resume” (The very short version!)

I have worked in the mental health field since 2010 in an array of different environments and levels of care, from residential to in-home to outpatient.  I opened my private practice, Therapy with Joy, where I have worked as the owner and clinical director since 2017.

I am the author of The Self-Compassion Workbook: Practical Exercises to Approach Your Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions with Kindness. I’m also a speaker/CEU presenter and provide trainings related to my expertise. One of my favorite examples of this was a 4 hour CEU training hosted by the Central Oregon Association of Psychologists called “The Body as an Ally: A Somatic Treatment Approach to Chronic Pain.”

I am a Somatic Experiencing Professional (SEP) and assistant trainer with Somatic Experiencing International. I am approved to offer SE Personal Sessions at the Beginning level. 

Specialities

These include, but are not limited to:

• Complex trauma

• Medical trauma (including prep for medical procedures to reduce the likelihood of developing medical trauma)

• Religious trauma

• Developmental/attachment trauma

• Chronic pain/illness and syndromes

• Neurodivergence

My Role as a Supervisor

I view my role as an encouraging mentor who identifies and celebrates your strengths, while gently challenging you to continue your growth. I want to partner with you on your journey as a healer. Ethics and boundaries are incredibly important to me, and I approach these from a place of shared commitment to bringing more healing to the world rather than rigid, blind rule-following. I want you to thrive as a clinician so that you can bring your unique blend of lived experience and clinical badass-ery to as many people as possible!

My Clinical Frameworks

While I now primarily use Somatic Experiencing in my practice, I have also trained in CBT, DBT, ACT, TBRI, The Daring Way, and mindful self-compassion. By combining “bottom-up” approaches with more cognitive modalities, I’m able to offer individualized care tailored to each person’s unique needs in a way that integrates the work more deeply.

Before my somatic training, clients would often make progress to a certain point. They’d say, “Joy, I know exactly what I want to do or what you would say, but I still can’t seem to catch myself or change my reaction in the moment.” SE has offered tools to shift the responses that happen before our cognition can catch up, and supports the nervous system’s ability to sense felt safety and build more capacity.

Not only has it enhanced my work with clients, but SE has also made my work as a clinician more sustainable. In the same ways I’m now able to support clients’ nervous systems, I’m also able to support my own nervous system more readily. I can stay more connected to myself, my own needs, and boundaries while supporting clients in a way that works for their nervous system in the moment. I enjoy sharing this work with other clinicians as well, helping you learn to truly take care of yourself is paramount to the longevity of your career.

As a social worker, I am committed to working from an anti-oppressive framework that honors the whole person and acknowledges their experiences in society. Healing comes through connection and community, and we cannot separate the work we do with our clients from the real impacts of the oppressive systems we exist within. I believe our work is political and I don’t shy away from that with other clinicians or clients. We should always be advocating for policies that create a better world for our clients and ourselves. There is no way to “work ourselves out of a job” as clinicians without addressing the systemic issues that affect our collective mental and emotional health.