Episode #112 The Intersection of Trauma and Addiction: Pamela Downey of Gulf Breeze Recovery

Pamela Downey a licensed mental health counselor in Florida has been with Gulf Breeze Recovery since their inception in 2013. 

As a therapist with a background in multiple disciplines, Pamela appreciates integration with a focus on wellness.  She has enjoyed working in private practice as a psychotherapist in downtown Pensacola since 2014, working with clients with various life concerns.

 Pamela is passionate about helping people heal from traumatic experiences with advanced training in EMDR, Eye movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.  She also enjoys teaching EMDR to other therapists.  EMDR is a comprehensive and integrative modality best known as an evidenced-based treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and many other presenting symptoms and diagnostics.

Another area of focus for Pamela has been working with people experiencing addiction.  She has been a part of a passionate team at Gulf Breeze Recovery.  Pamela teaches several psycho-educational classes in this non-12-step, wellness-based inpatient addiction recovery center and hosts graduate and family support groups.

 In addition to such psychotherapy approaches, Pamela is an enthusiastic provider of EEG Neurofeedback.  Neurofeedback offers a brain-based approach to training the brain to think, feel and perform better.  Using an exciting, streamlined technology that utilizes the best minds in the business, generating research-based protocols, clients have access to the accelerated capacity of the brain to move out of states of over and under activation ( a root of many of our symptoms and barrier to many of our goals), clients see significant symptom improvement,( from depression and anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and other attention/focus or cognitive issues, to performance enhancement across in the arts, professional life and sports). 

Pamela looks forward to continued collaboration with my colleagues, community and clients to find the best ways of experiencing our best life. 

According to Pamela

I look at trauma through a broader lens.  Trauma can cause many different issues, including depression, PTSD, addiction, and cross-correspondences between all of those variations of how one experiences a dwindling or a lack of mental health or quality of life.  I'm also bringing shame up in this conversation about trauma because one of the premier researchers on the experience of shame, Dr. Brene Brown, talks about how shame can bring up the same symptoms physiologically and neurobiologically that trauma does.  I teach a kind of therapy that has its roots in the treatment of trauma.  That therapy is EMDR.  Many of our therapists at Gulf Breeze Recovery are trained in EMDR therapy; it's an excellent modality that cross-corresponds very well with our treatment program to give our guests the best treatment possible.  And we add neurofeedback.  So that is a sort of trifecta of trauma and addiction treatment.  We are looking at what neural network or file folder in the brain seems to represent this person's symptoms and difficulties when they see us for addiction and beyond.

By the way, no one comes to see us just for addiction.  People come to see us to have a better life and a better experience of their life to regain something that they've lost or cultivate something that they have not had.  And that is really what addiction is about.  It is all just part of how much I enjoy being able to talk with people and help people with trauma and addiction.

 I know that we are on the cutting edge of a very big paradigm shift in treating addiction and recovery at Gulf Breeze Recovery.  People do not want not to use a substance; they want a solution to why they are using it.

https://www.gulfbreezerecovery.com/