About Me
Welcome to The Taproot Counseling & Somatic Wellness Center! I am Lynn Jackson, a Licensed Professional Counselor who is passionate about assisting clients restore a sense of balance and joy in their lives. My formal education, field experience, and personal journey of recovery have prepared me to counsel adults, couples, and groups utilizing a holistic treatment approach. I will meet you where you are on your own personal journey, and help you forge and navigate a personalized, authentic path to wellbeing.
I have worked in a variety of treatment center and private practice settings. I am an EMDRIA Certified EMDR Therapist, Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner (SEP), and Certified Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) therapist. Through collaboration with Journey Medical, I am also able to provide Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. I may use a variety of body-oriented techniques like trauma informed yoga and touch work to treat attachment issues, complex and developmental trauma, shock-trauma, family of origin issues, somatic issues such as autoimmune disease and chronic pain, codependency, anxiety, depression, sex addiction, and betrayal trauma.
I truly believe that many of our issues are in our tissues.so I combine a top-down and bottom-up approach that integrates body work into treatment. Reaching out for help can be difficult. I’m glad you’re here and invite you reach out to see if I am the right therapist for you.
Treatment Modalities
Somatic ExperiencingTM
The founder of Somatic ExperiencingTM, Peter Levine says that “Trauma lies in the nervous system, not the event.” Each person’s response to grief and trauma is different, and for many, there are no words to describe the experience or impact.
Somatic ExperiencingTM is largely based on Polyvagal Theory and we work with the Vagus Nerve to move an individual's nervous system out of a state of fight, flight, freeze, or appease, to a more socially engaged, regulated state. SETM is a bottom-up approach to treating trauma using the body's physiological and sensory responses to distress and goes where words cannot take us on our path to recovery
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is psychotherapy that is enhanced with the use of Ketamine. The medicine works structurally in the brain to increase neuroplasticity by dissociating the neural connections involved in rumination, negative self talk, and maladaptive thought processes, allowing new, more adaptive neural connections to form. KAP can open a dialogue with one's subconscious and help lower one's defenses to explore and create new behaviors/patterns/core beliefs about self, others, and the world with a new sense of clarity and insights. KAP is often a 3-6 month treatment protocol. It is not a quick fix, although it is an incredible tool for jump-starting healing. The "magic" of Ketamine doesn't end with the experience itself, It is within the therapeutic process that true and lasting transformation occurs.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence based approach designed to help clients heal from traumatic memories and distressing life experiences. The process includes the therapist helping the client recall distressing memories, while engaging in bilateral stimulation through guided eye movements, tapping, or auditory cues. This process helps the brain reprocess traumatic memories, reducing their emotional intensity. This enables the client to integrate the memories in a healthier way.
Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
Safe and Sound Protocol™ is a listening therapy that accesses and stimulates the Vagus Nerve through the inner ear. SSP utilizes algorithmically altered music that filters out frequencies that do not fall within the frequency range of the human voice. Both high frequencies and low frequencies are filtered out because both can signal danger. The prosodic, melodic sound of the middle frequencies can mimic the sound of a loving caregiver’s lullaby or coo. This specially filtered music moves the nervous system out of a defense (fight, flight, freeze) state and activates the socially engaged (ventral vagal) state of safety and relaxation. With continued listening it can help clients orient to the sounds of safety in all environments.
Talk Therapy and CBT
Talk therapy helps individuals understand and manage their emotions, develop coping strategies, and improve overall wellbeing. Talk therapy can address a wide range of issues including anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and trauma. CBT is a specific type of talk therapy that focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns and behaviors. It is based on the idea that thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are interconnected, and that by modifying destructive thoughts, individuals can improve their emotional and behavioral responses.
The Somatic Wellness Center
The Somatic Wellness Center is where I do Somatic Experiencing touch work with some clients. I offer gentle, attuned touch to support a client’s nervous system. Somatic touch work helps individuals process and integrate traumatic experiences and begin to work in a bottom-up way to complete trauma responses that may have been thwarted. We slowly begin to unwind the physiological bracing patterns that are no longer necessary. This touch work can help the body release tension and stress and promotes emotional and physical healing.
The Somatic Wellness Center is also where Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) dosing work is done. The KAP setting is a sacred healing space that we smudge with sage for clearing negative energy and palo santo for inviting positive energy prior to each session. Art supplies, oracle cards, stones, musical instruments, essential oils, eye masks/pillows, headphones and all items necessary for the Ketamine dosing session are available for use in this space.
Clients may also reserve time in the Somatic Wellness Center on their own to utilize the equipment available. All devices in the Somatic Wellness Center are designed to help clients master and regulate their nervous systems through direct and indirect stimulation of the Vagus Nerve. Equipment available in the Somatic Wellness Center includes:
The BioAcoustic Mat® employs a powerful low frequency sound generator that delivers a deep acoustic massage and cellular stimulation to the skin, muscles and joints. BioAcoustic Mat’s® music is embedded with specific frequencies that coax our mind into different therapeutic states by stimulating neural activity in the brain by controlling the number of sounds the ear hears per second and by playing a slightly different pitch in each ear. This results in our mind syncing with the rhythm of the body for relaxed or energized coherence.
BIoMat ® - is a US FDA 510k registered medical device providing far-infrared rays (FIR), negative ion therapy, and superconducting natural tourmaline and amethyst crystals to allow radiant heat and negative ions to penetrate deep into the body. The BIoMat ® tones the nervous system for optimum performance to improve sleep and alleviate chronic pain, stress, anxiety, and depression.
VeRelief - Vagus Nerve Stimulation device with 5 modes and positions for general anxiety, sleep quality, stress recovery, optimize for performance, and panic attacks.
Safe and Sound Protocol™ is sound therapy that utilizes algorithmically altered music that filters out frequencies that do not fall within the frequency range of the natural prosody of the human voice. This specially filtered music moves the nervous system out of a defense (fight, flight, freeze) state and activates the socially engaged (ventral vagal) state of safety and relaxation.
Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulator is an FDA registered class II medical device that sends electrical impulses to the brain that stimulate the production of alpha waves, associated with resilience and calm focus, and balance the neurochemicals regulating moods, emotions, sleep, and cognition.
Chi Machine – The Chi machine is a passive method of relaxing movement in a reclined position. The Chi machine creates a figure 8 motion in the body while relaxing in a reclined position. Chi Machine Therapy creates passive lateral flexion in the spine and hips reducing back and hip pain and creating spinal flexibility, and helps balance the autonomic nervous system.