Specializations
Clinical Social Work/Therapist, LCSW (she, her)
Christine Manuel, LCSW
Hello! I'm Christine Manuel, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Therapist. I earned my Masters Degree from the University of Chicago, and I have been in this field for over 15 years. I started my Practice to work with Individuals who are seeking to find their own unique path to improve their mental health. I look forward to working with Clients who are seeking support for issues that are impacting their daily lives, relationships, and sense of self. I hope to help improve the quality of my Clients' lives through therapeutic intervention.
I utilize EMDR, as well as Attachment Focused and Psychotherapy Interventions. I spent 10 years working with families formed through adoption and became passionate about issues related to Attachment Trauma, Identity Development, and Adjusting to Life Changes. I have experience providing services in-person and using Video conferencing.
Are you currently struggling with your mental health and seeking a Therapist to help you improve your quality of life? If so, I want to encourage you to reach out for a free Consultation Call to establish whether I might be a good fit to walk with you on that journey.
WHAT IS EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy used to process past traumas and manage current distress. There has been extensive research to show that this is an effective method to help individuals heal from trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, and distressing life experiences. By using bilateral stimulation, Clients are able to reprocess these disturbing experiences and replace negative maladaptive beliefs with more useful positive ones.
How Does EMDR work?
Throughout our lives we develop beliefs about ourselves based on what we experience. Sometimes trauma, distressing events, or negative relational interactions may lead to negative and unhelpful beliefs about ourselves. Over time patterns of experiences and interactions can lead to Core Negative Beliefs. These core negative beliefs typically have a theme that has developed and strengthened over time, and they affect us in the present. When we have new experiences that feel similar in some way to past traumas, these core negative beliefs can activate and cause us to experience a distresssing over response to the current experience. EMDR works to target and process through those core negative beliefs and replace them with positive beliefs. This decreases the power that the memories, thoughts, somatic experiences, and emotions tied to these events have over us and allows us to respond more appropriately to new experiences in life. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation which can be tactile (tapping or holding alternating buzzers), visual (following a light on a screen or following a Clinicians hand movements, or auditory (using headphones to hear alternating beeps). Bilateral stimulation allows reprocessing to occur both on the emotional and logical sides of the brain.
How is EMDR different?
Everyday we have dozens of experiences that our brains process and we are able to continue on with our daily tasks. When something happens that is traumatic or particularly distressing it may get stuck and stored ineffectively. This can cause negative self belief, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. EMDR can provide an opportunity for our brain to continue to process through those incidents and memories with support from an EMDR trained therapist. Many other therapies and techniques focus on trying to change thoughts or emotions which may help temporarily with symptoms, but EMDR can allow Client to process through some of the root experiences and reduce the impact of the incidents long term. Many Clients who have participated in traditional therapy find benefit with EMDR because it feels like a very different way of processing.
