Secular Counseling, Scientifically-Informed
Todd B.Hudson, LPC
Taylor McDowell, APC
Lynsey Joy, NCC
Secular counseling in the heart of the "Bible Belt"
From its inception, Waypoint has been committed to offering counseling and psychotherapy from a secular/non-religious perspective for those clients who feel disenfranchised by dogmatism and faith-based solutions. All of our therapists share a secular, humanistic, and scientifically informed approach to therapy.
OUR SPECIALIZATIONS
Trauma & PTSD
Trauma can be "simple" (distinct emotionally-charged events that left you feeling dysregulated), or it can be "complex," (years, even decades, of continuous abuse, neglect, shame, manipulation, head games, and/or other forms of mistreatment). Trauma rewires your neural circuitry in ways that leave you wondering why you do the things you do, and if you will ever feel whole again.
Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety is the over-estimation of threat. It springs from our natural fight-or-flight response and our tendency to worry about things that could potentially go wrong. We evolved these functions to keep us safe. In anxiety disorders, these natural responses are exaggerated until they are self-defeating. Anxiety can be experienced as dread, procrastination, avoidance, an obsessive need for certainty, social paralysis, and full-blown panic.
Narcissistic Abuse
Narcissistic abuse often overlaps with complex trauma, but it deserves its own mention because it is often so subtle that we don't recognize it. When someone central to our lives is pathologically self-absorbed - whether they are grandiose, or needy and self-victimizing - the effect can be that our sense of self and of reality become distorted. The narcissist may have "trained us" to serve their emotional needs while ignoring our own, and we may carry this habit forward into other relationships.
Addiction
Many people who struggle with addiction say that their substance use began as an attempt to self-medicate, to cope with stress, to blot out trauma, or to escape painful emotions. For others, the roots of addiction are more elusive. What we do know is that at some point we lost control, if we ever had it.
Adjustment and Life Transitions
Many people who seek counseling are having trouble adjusting to a stressful event (often the accumulation of events) that may not be "traumatic" in the conventional sense, but which nevertheless cause them to have difficulty adjusting to their new reality. Sometimes we just need a sounding board, a guide through tough terrain, and someone to reassure us that we're not "crazy."
EMDR
Practitioner
Learn more about EMDR and Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy
