ACMHC
Hi! I’m Casherie Bright and I am one of the therapists at the NeuroTherapy and Trauma Center of Utah. A self-disclosure, I am also a part owner in the company and am married to the other owner (Jeff). We are a family run company and currently have six therapists that work full-time and part-time with us.
I have been in the mental health field practically my whole adult life. I entered college in 2003 and volunteered for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah as a Big Sister (where I met Jeff). My first real job started out with Jeff as group home parents for teens with mental health problems in a residential treatment center. We lived with ten teenage girls! This was a great experience for us, we learned so much and made so many mistakes.
After our group home time, I spent time in a few other mental health facilities and even had foster care teenage girls with mental health problems live with us. I learned to love children and teens in the foster care system. I worked for several years in supervision of foster care homes for adolescent and children with mental health symptoms. Just last year, we adopted two children: an infant and a daughter with mental health needs and we are learning how to live as an integrated family. Living with a child with mental health needs is much different then providing care from a comfy office!
I am “Master Certified” in NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) through the NLP Institute of California http://www.nlpca.com/DCweb/About_Us.html. I am also certified in the Teaching Family Model which is a CBT learning based model https://teaching-family.org/ . I have been trained in Trauma Focused CBT https://tfcbt.org/ and trained in Neurofeedback extensively http://www.isnr.org. Basically this all means that I am qualified to treat trauma and I use both traditional, evidence-based interventions (CBT) and some out-of-the-box methods like Neurofeedback and NLP. I combine both of these to provide holistic treatment.
My favorite clients include children and teens who are in foster care or who have been adopted. I love to work childrenwith them and their families to provide overall strategies on how to help the child adjust and find happiness. I don’t believe that children can be helped without supporting the parents. I am uniquely qualified to help adoptive parents because I am an adoptive parent and this makes me less likely to judge and criticize parents methods. I have had many mistakes with my own adoptive children and am still making mistakes and learning new things all the time!
My therapy methods tend to focus on skills (CBT) and changing core beliefs. My goal for each client or family is to help them create and visualize a life that is ideal and then work towards creating that life. For many, this means reducing the impact of trauma from birth families, and the loss and grief that comes with adoption and foster care. I find many adoptive parents who experience loss and grief along with the children and try to normalize this experience.