Watch this webinar with Stephanie Heitkempher, Ph.D., a specialist in EMDR, discusses the nuanced connection between EMDR and grief in this conversation. As the owner of Resilient Minds Counseling, she focuses on helping individuals, children, and families navigate change, particularly in the realms of grief and trauma, using a combination of play therapy, creative expression, and EMDR.
Founder, Resilient Minds Counseling
Stephanie Heitkemper, MA MFT, LPC, RPT, FT is the owner of Resilient Minds Counseling which specializes in working with individuals, children, and families around change, including grief and trauma. Stephanie incorporates play therapy (Registered Play Therapist), creative expression, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) (EMDRIA Approved Consultant), in her counseling practice, program creation, and presentations. Stephanie is the Camp Therapist and a board member for Camp Jojo, which focuses teens who have been impacted by suicide in a unique model that weaves grief support plus mental health education along hands on adventure. Stephanie is the lead facilitator for CAMP HAL, a program with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation that is dedicated to supporting children ages 3-6 who have experienced a line of duty death.
Stephanie has served on the board of directors for HeartLight Center, a Denver Based grief support and education center since 2017. Stephanie has been an active volunteer with Comfort Zone Camp since 2010. In 2020, Stephanie was awarded her Fellow in Thanatology. Stephanie is currently a PhD candidate at Regent University. Her dissertation is a critical literature review on peer support bereavement programs, and their ability to address childhood bereavement risk factors.
Ana is the author of EMDR Therapy and Adjunct Approaches with Children: Complex Trauma, Attachment and Dissociation, and several books, book chapters, and articles on the use of EMDR therapy with children and adolescents.
She is the author of eight children’s books that address trauma and EMDR therapy. She also co-authored with Dr. Francine Shapiro an article on using EMDR therapy with children, published in 2013. Ana received the 2011 “Distinguished Service Award” from the Arizona Play Therapy Association and the 2012 Sierra Tucson “Hope Award.”
Ana has developed numerous intensive training programs and protocols, including the “EMDR-Sandtray Protocol” “The Story-Making Protocol” and “The Systemic, EMDR- Attachment Informed Program to Heal Intergenerational Trauma & Repair the Parent-Child Attachment Bond.” She has also created “The Multimodal Integrative Approach to EMDR Therapy with Children Affected by Complex Trauma and Dissociation,” a unique and comprehensive model to use EMDR with children with complex clinical presentations.
