Meet Bridgette
Trauma Therapist in Leesburg, Florida
Working with a new therapist can be nerve-racking. I have worked with women who have shared with me about negative past experiences with therapy. Those experiences included:
receiving a lack of empathy,
their cultural or racial experiences being dismissed
feeling like they couldn’t be themselves.
Understanding you, your experiences, and how your struggles are affecting you is the basis of any work that we do together. I believe that building a relationship happens with me trusting you about your experiences, so that you can trust that our work will help you move in the direction you need.
I am Bridgette, a trauma therapist in Leesburg Florida. I work with Black women who are ready to give themselves permission to live authentically.
What do you do in Trauma Therapy in Leesburg, FL?
We will work together to understand how past trauma affects you, and gain skills to live the life you want. Trauma can influence your thoughts in ways we may not even realize:
Do you feel like everything going wrong?
Are you always telling yourself you could be doing more?
Are you unable to quiet that negative voice that is always criticizing you?
We can work on reducing those thoughts and regulating the feelings that come with them. We will work together to process past trauma, reduce its impact on you, and gain skills to live the life you want. Our goal is to learn to believe you are more than the negative things that have happened to you.
What are your qualifications to do Trauma Therapy and Therapy for PTSD?
Over the course of my time as a therapist, I have work with many client that have past trauma and PTSD. Because the of affect trauma can have on people, it was important to me to target my training to work with those clients. I wanted to learn to help clients:
Feel better about themselves, and criticize themselves less
Remove the shame associated with the event
Have fewer and less intense reactions to things that remind them of the trauma
Feel more relaxed and less anxious
Feel less guilty about taking care of themselves and asking for what they need
Feel more confident with saying “No.”
I have learned to do all these with my clients through my trainings. I am a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and a Prolonged Exposure Therapy Provider.
My favorite parts of this journey are seeing people become more confident and seeing their excitement as they notice they are less anxious and reactive to certain situations.
Why do you care about therapy for women issues?
Very often it can be hard to verbalize to others the things we struggle with as women. We should be happy to be moms and wives, right?
Two things can be true at once: we love the people in our lives, but we also struggle with these roles and expectations. Or maybe, we are just genuinely unhappy with this stage.
I’ve worked with many women who have felt that way and felt they couldn’t talk about. I’ve been the woman that felt that way and didn’t think I could talk about it.
I learned that’s normal. And it’s okay.
I want to help other women learn that too.
Let’s talk about those thoughts and feelings, and your need to feel like yourself again. As you. Who you were, who you are, and who you want to be.
Offering Therapy in Leesburg, FL
Why therapy for Black women?
I know what it’s like to have to filter the way you say certain things before you say them. The words you use. The phrases that come naturally. The stories you share.
In school I learned about the biases that exist, and how they affect the therapeutic process. In my work, I have had to educate colleagues when there were gaps in understanding of culture and behaviors.
I have worked with women who have felt their experiences were dismissed. Their perception of interactions had been invalidated. I have had my own share of interactions where racial and cultural aspects were questioned or ignored.
You deserve a place to be unfiltered and understood.
A place where your interpretation and perceptions are understood.
A place your cultural experiences are understood.
The therapeutic relationship is one place where you should not have to worry about filtering yourself. My goal is to create a space where you don’t have to do that.
Your Trauma Therapist in Leesburg, FL
Outside the Therapy Room
I’m a mom of two, middle child, and lover of food. One of my favorite things to do is go to a movie and have dinner afterward. I used to be an avid reader and have recently gotten back into reading as a hobby. I love going on [reasonable] adventures; it’s always great to add new experiences to your memory bank.
I knew in high school that I wanted to work with people as a therapist. I took the scenic route to get here (I had five majors in undergrad, and graduated with my degree in legal studies, preparing to go to law school). It was after several years—and a job working with at-risk youth—that my love for working with people brought me back to school to get a master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I started out working with children in crisis. Since then, I have worked in community mental health, and most recently with veterans and their families.
In my relationships, I always acted as a mediator. I was very much a people pleaser, and found my value in the things I could do and provide for others. I was very fortunate to have two Black women that taught me the importance of advocating for myself at the beginning of my career. I remember very vividly when I was stressed about being given a task that I did not have the capacity for, and one of them looked at me and said, “You’re not doing that. Go tell them no.” I was shocked; I thought to myself “I didn’t know I could do that…” That eventually grew into me advocating for myself without being prompted. That changed my life. Knowing the difference that can make is why I am so passionate about teaching women that they can say no, value themselves, and still be good people.
Lightning Round
(I am not good at these! I love so many things)
Favorite Food: Pasta
Favorite Dessert: My mom’s chocolate cake
Favorite Movie: Gladiator (followed closely by The Count of Monte Cristo)
Favorite Show: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or YuYu Hakusho
Favorite Book: This is tough, but I loved “The Outsiders” when I was younger, my favorite series was Artemis Fowl
Favorite Activity: Introducing my kids to my childhood shows
Favorite Quote: I have two
Deal with yourself as if you are an individual worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way.
—Nikki Giovanna
I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.
― Tracee Ellis Ross