This was twenty-five years after doing my undergraduate studies. I received my master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Baltimore in 2015. Nonetheless, I prevailed in completing graduate studies and with honors, in spite of the health challenges I face. These experiences were intensely stressful particularly since at this level of education, a graduate level or above, the use of accommodations to offset some of your “problems” is at the discretion of each professor, even though disabilities office has accessed you and “prescribed the allotted accommodations”. During orientation I had met with the university disability advisor and appropriate accommodations were granted to offset the disabilities I had returned to graduate school with: chemo brain, advanced stage lymphedema, and history of repeated infections with a compromised immune system. Secondly, it was invaluable in that I had learnt a lot from the experiences of working with the university’s disability office. This is extremely challenging mostly because you will suffer with high anxiety when you overtax the brain and at that point cognitive functioning ceases. First and foremost, it was the place where I put to use neuroplasticity and had to learn to balance smaller studying periods with intermittent breaking, while still getting all the work done in a timely fashion. This time spent was invaluable, predominately in two ways. I did go to graduate school for my master’s degree. Little did I know, I would get stage three, triple negative breast cancer at the early age of 41 or that I would be in the position to have choose to go back to graduate school with the challenges imposed by having chemo brain. This decision was made with the mindset that I would be able to return easily to school at any time. Thus, even in my early years of undergraduate studies, I was questioning the various approaches of therapy that were used and assessing whether the approaches used were of benefit or not.įrom graduate studies, I got temporally derailed and decided to forego doctorate studies until my son was grown. Specifically, I wanted to know if rape prevention classes that included fear-provoked vignettes of women being stalked induced fear restrictive behaviors, such as avoiding going out when dark, or nonrestrictive confident behaviors, such as going out at dark but making smart choices such as going out with a buddy or parking in a well-lit area. My undergraduate research work was original work and was on the effectiveness of rape prevention training. I provided services as a counselor with individuals or groups, worked on a crisis hotline, provided court advocacy for victims, provided emergency room companionship for rape victims while the rape evidence kits were collected, and was an educator/trainer to prevent sexual abuse throughout many of Maryland’s private schools. I had worked with families and victims of domestic violence, incest, and rape for over a decade. My area of expertise then were with crisis intervention and trauma. I received my bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in 1990. One of my undergraduate degrees is in mental health and the other in Psychology. Thus, the exact percentage of change that brain retraining had formed is mathematically equated throughout each training session. I take pre and post assessments and measure the comparative differences. Know too that no two brains are alike, and the QEEG brain mapping assessment allows us to look directly at your brain live, enables a concrete analysis of your issues, and removes any guessing as to what needs to be done to get healthier. With IBH model, your brain is assessed and a personalized treatment protocol is obtained. I developed this approach of care ~ “integrative brain health” (IBH) where YOU and your brain direct the journey to a healthier you. Thus, effective therapy that produces quality results needs to start with the brain. The ability to heal resides in our amazing plastic brains that change themselves. Our state of health and wellbeing all begins in our brains. My primary means to get you healthier is YOU, that is a “self-regulated” you! I use mind-body medicine (MBM) as well as other models of medicine and healing to support people in optimizing their own innate healing capabilities and be whole. I am a health psychology therapist, an integrative health coach, neurofeedback practitioner, meditation trainer, reiki master, and cancer survivor/thriver.
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