Melissa Tatar-Pickersgill

I welcome you to my practice where I specialize in facilitating multicultural counseling and trauma-informed mind-body psychotherapy treatment interventions to stop/rewire painful sensory surfacing in the body and trauma memory symptoms that most neurodivergent clients (Autism & ADHD) must learn how to adapt (survival) strategies; since, their mental/behavioral health has been impacted due to their neurodevelopmental delays in early childhood. Over time, repetitive confusion and misinterpretation of, for example, social rules in social communication impairs a person’s perception’s prediction’s accuracy; thus, increasing unintentionally anxiety in the body’s felt sense of what is right and what is off. Therefore, my clients are often (mis)diagnosed or develop over the course of their lives Eating Disorders, Chronic Pain, Depression, Emotive/Involuntary Impulse Control Disturbances, OCD traits like Intrusive Thoughts or a need to control the narrative, Conduct Disorders, Personality Disorders, Oppositional Defiance Disorders, Dissociative Identity Disorders, Intellectual Disability Disorders, PTSD, complex PTSD, Bi-Polar similarities, all Anxiety Disorder types, and even Schizophrenia, etc, etc.

I am neurodivergent myself, so I have personal experience in how the neurodivergent brain differs from my neurotypical clients'. Meaning; I tweaked the psycho-ed to be understood and applied more easily by us Neurodi!

I also work with neurotypical individuals who do or do not have any conscious recall of trauma memories to reference in talk therapy yet continue to suffer daily, symptoms like nightmares, anxiety/OCD, personality disorder types traits, unwanted behaviors/thoughts/addictions, etc., which are btw emotional trauma(s) induced. I have been trained or certified to treat PTSD (an emotional trauma type) in four of the five evidence-based therapies that work: EMDR, Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems, and Hypnotherapy. Also, Somatic Psychology interventions and Polyvagal Theory's constructs are studied by my clients along with the questions derived from NARM’s pillars is counseled together because, to me, the combination of these interventions has proven to me to be an effective treatment approach. [e.g., my client cases: SI and HI stop, violence/anxiety/depression lessens quickly as self-love and pride Increases their resilience naturally with ease so my clients often have the "mindful choice" first about how to respond to future stressors].

Childhood PTSD and Neurodevelopmental Disorder cases are complex and require a mind-body psychotherapist like me who specializes in how to identify the subconscious drivers and is capable to facilitate the treatment interventions I renamed as simple to recall and self-direct "brain-hacks" that rewire the brain’s response system (ANS), enhancing the body’s ability to remain calm and most importantly sustain such resilience during stressful situations. This means my clients "truly" feel confidence within their bodies to face the day or their feared situation. In daily social interactions my clients have reported this therapy approach has had a direct effect on their ability to easily facilitate their social skills within their intra-personal and inter-personal relationships; because their "knowing" senses that they can do it again and again... got a power up.

Impact Therapy's model: RCFFC guides each session, to provide ethical consent at each stage of the process. R is for rapport so a quick check-in on how my client and I are at the start of the session is discussed in order to provide each of us the opportunity to shift our mindset from where we came from....into the present with each other in the therapy room/Telehealth setting. C is for contract, which is "the ask", meaning what has been going on this week that the client wants to discuss in the session or work on from the treatment plan. F is for focus, and it is my job to utilize active listing skills to narrow the information provided by my client to what is most important to focus the treatment upon in the present session. F is for funnel, meaning the intervention that I will suggest and request the client's consent prior to facilitating (EMDR/BSP, CBT, etc). C is for the close of the session in which the client is provided time to discuss their experience in therapy and what the client will do during the week moving forward before our next session.

I was trained in Impact Therapy for two years by my counseling teacher and mentor who happened to be the therapy's founder's doctoral intern back in the day so she helped with the design of many of the interventions provided by Impact Therapy.

To me, my client is my boss. I expect my clients to consider themselves as the CEOs of their lives and I just an advisor they hired to sit on their board.

I wish you well, ms MISSY ms