Brent Cichoski, LPC, CSAT, EMDR 2, therapist has worked as an outpatient mental health provider since 2008. He began his work doing clinical work as an adoption case worker. Brent found this work enjoyable because he has four adopted children. Additionally, he worked with birth parents helping to coordinate adoption plans. Shortly after, Brent found his real passion was offering psychotherapy to individuals and couples. He became very much committed to helping individuals and couples identify strategies to cope and incorporate skills to empower themselves to solve their problems. Psychotherapy is Brent’s passion and he is dedicated to meeting the individual and relational needs of his clients in a safe, confidential and professional setting.
Brent’s focus with couples is the Gottman Method Couples Therapy. He is currently a level two trained Gottman couples therapist and enjoys working with couples to not only address problem areas within their relationship, but to help couples to enhance their committment to one another; develop and increase healthy communication skillsl and assist individuals within the relationship to effectively attain their individual goals and objectives while investing in and improving their core relationship.
The Gottman Method also disarms conflicting verbal communication, increase intimacy, respect, and affection, remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy in conflicting situations, and create a heightened sense of empathy and understanding within the context of the relationship.
Brent Cichoski
Brent is also an EMDR 2 therapist, a therapy designed to revisit the distress and reawaken the images, emotions, body sensations and negative feelings about self. Bilateral stimulation (eye-movements, pulsing, or tapping) allows the brain to reprocess the stored bad feelings, thoughts and body sensations. When that happens, the brain has a way of re-encoding the trauma and painful information and it becomes resolved and integrated.
Simply put: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) helps to move the storage of a disturbing memory to a more functional part of the brain that can experience the event as actually being in the past. It is important to know that there is a real physical change happening with EMDR. The events that used to trigger the brain into over-reaction no longer have that effect. The person can now react to the present without interference from the past.
Brent has a master’s degree in Counseling from George Fox University and an undergraduate degree in Business, which brings an eclectic mix of education and life experience to his work with clients. Brent has a passion for his work and finds great joy in being part of the healing process. Brent has been married for thirty-five years and has four children. He enjoys gardening, traveling, painting, movies, discovering new restaurants, and spending time with his family.