Lisa Mulholland, LCSW | Women's Therapy in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Lisa Mulholland is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker integrating research and evidenced based practice standards for the treatment of trauma, anxiety and depression. During her years in practice, she has provided individual, group, and family therapy. She has worked in acute care settings, outpatient clinics and in private practice. Since working in private practice her focus has often been with adults who’ve experienced trauma.

Ms. Mulholland recognizes the importance of helping clients create a new, empowering narrative, in response to a traumatic event. The client who survived the trauma has access to critical details and insights the clinician doesn't have. The key to helping clients regain their sense of personal power and autonomy is situated in the language used by the clinician. Oftentimes, the clinician and client can disagree on the way in which the trauma story is explained. While the clinician may be the expert on which interventions will best help a client heal, the client needs to use language that helps rebuild the sense of self that was lost during the trauma.

After a traumatic event occurs, the mind seeks to make order out of the chaos. The mind replays the trauma scene many times. This trauma movie has a relationship with the past, but not the present. The past, where the trauma started, can involve physical assault. When the body has healed from the attack, the mind recalls the physical details of the trauma, like a painting. The imagery, combined with the memorized script, imprints its reality on the present body, effectively triggering an upset stomach, teeth grinding, nail-biting, etc. The present body is subservient to the activity of the past mind. This body - mind frisson is dissonance. Ms. Mulholland helps clients learn to master the present narrative, “my loved ones are safe now, no one is hurting me now, my home is secure now, etc.” The body learns to become responsive to the new narrative, in the present. Clients report noticing shifts in mood and the absence of negative somatic symptoms, and report feeling they have closure on such events.