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Child and Teenager Therapy

Kristan Baer

LMSW MSW SEP 

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Kristan Baer, LMSW, SEP: Trauma-Focused Therapist in Birmingham, AL

Integrative Mind-Body Approach to Healing

Kristan understands that healing must integrate both mind and body. In therapy with Kristan, you will not need to talk endlessly or complete worksheets. Instead, she will gently guide you as you tune in to what your body is telling you to release trapped traumatic energy and restore a sense of safety and connection with yourself and the world around you.

The core of Kristan’s practice is building a safe, supportive environment. She specializes in attachment repair, trauma, sexual trauma, women’s issues, PTSD, C-PTSD, anxiety, and depression. She works with the mind-body system to reintegrate traumatic memory and resolve the energy that becomes trapped after a traumatic event. This trapped energy can manifest as chronic illness, dissociation, revictimization, inability to hold big emotions, and repetitive unhealthy patterns in career performance, relationships, and parenting. Working with the whole mind-body system allows for rewiring of neural networks allowing for faster, long-term resolution of traumatic symptoms.

Learning the Difference in Intuition and Trauma

Kristan Baer is a licensed master social worker (LMSW) and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) providing trauma-focused therapy in Birmingham, AL. She specializes in helping clients heal from PTSD, Complex PTSD, trauma (specifically sexual, medical, and relational trauma), anxiety, and depression. Kristan’s own lived experienced as a survivor of breast cancer allows her to understand working with people who are enduring challenging diagnoses and chronic illnesses. Kristan is also well-versed at helping working mothers trying to juggle being a professional and a mom, which she understands all too well.

Trauma-Focused Therapeutic Modalities

Kristan’s approach integrates both somatic practice and brain based medicine, guided by the pioneering work of trauma experts like Bessel van der Kolk, Janina Fisher, and Pete Walker (Complex PTSD), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing), and Peggy Pace (Lifespan Integration). Their books and modalities serve as key inspirations for her practice.

Kristan’s training in multiple therapy models allows her to customize the therapeutic experience to fit each client. Her trauma-focused somatic and experiential approach includes certification as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, level 3 training in Lifespan Integration (LI) Therapy, and training in trauma-informed yoga. SE and LI are two powerful modalities that go beyond talk therapy and cognitive therapy to resolve trauma. This unique blend of psychotherapy and body-centered therapy encourages nervous system regulation and a restored connection with the body and the intuitive self, leading to sustainable healing and a healthier way of living.

Kristan’s  Specialties

○LGBT QIA+ Affirming  ○Polyamory Affirming ○Somatic Experiencing

○Lifespan Integration Therapy

○Attachment Problems ○CBT and DBT Therapy ○Adult Children of Addiction ○Mindfulness Based Therapy ○Severe Trauma and CPTSD

○Teenage Counseling and Trauma in Teenagers ○Personal and Career Stagnation ○Parenting and Motherhood

Got a question for Kristan? Email: [email protected]

LMSW License # 6165G

In The Supervision of Joel Blackstock

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Issues that Somatic Experiencing and Lifespan Integration Can Treat

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)

Developmental Trauma

Childhood Abuse and Neglect

Sexual Abuse and Assault

Domestic Violence

Medical Trauma

Surgical Trauma

Accidents and Injuries

Natural Disasters

War and Combat Trauma

Refugee and Displacement Trauma

Intergenerational Trauma

Attachment Disorders

Adoption and Foster Care Issues

Grief and Loss

Anxiety Disorders

Panic Attacks

Phobias

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Depression

Bipolar Disorder

Dissociative Disorders

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

Eating Disorders

Body Image Issues

“When we heal our own trauma, individually and collectively, we don’t just heal our bodies. By refusing to pass on the trauma we inherited, we help heal the world.”

 

-Resmaa Menakem
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"If frightening sensations are not given the time and attention they need to move through the body and resolve or dissolve, the individual will continue to be gripped by fear."

― Peter Levine

“Re-enactments may be played out in intimate relationships, work situations, repetitive accidents or mishaps, and in other seemingly random events. They may also appear in the form of bodily symptoms or psychosomatic diseases. Children who have had a traumatic experience will often repeatedly recreate it in their play. As adults, we are often compelled to re-enact our early traumas in our daily lives. The mechanism is similar regardless of the individual’s age.”

―Peter Levine

“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself… The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know.”

― Bessel van der Kolk

"The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect."

-Peter A. Levine

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"Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence."

-Peter A. Levine

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“Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.”

– Bessel A. van der Kolk

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