Close Up Radio Spotlights Stacey White Kinney of South County Counseling

Newport Beach, CA – Stacey White Kinney is a licensed marriage and family therapist with over 30 years of experience in child, adolescent and adult psychotherapy, as well as extensive experience working with trauma, child abuse and high conflict divorce. Today Stacey is the founder of South County Counseling, where she is dedicated to strengthening her community by improving the lives of children and families affected by trauma.

Stacey treats trauma primarily through Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Stacey is an EMDRIA certified therapist and EMDR consultant in training.

“One of the things in my practice that's changed is my approach to how I treat trauma,” says Stacey. “I was a cognitive behavioral therapist for my whole career, so I understand people come in with a story, but they can be retraumatized by just talking about what had happened over and over.

“EMDR allows us to calm down those neurological networks so that they can fully process it and we can do it nonverbally. By detaching from that emotional component of trauma, we can really work through things. It engages people in therapy even more because a lot of people are afraid to talk about the trauma.”

Recent studies on adverse childhood experiences have found that early childhood experiences are correlated to physical health later in life.

“What’s exciting about treating trauma in children is we can actually prevent genes from being expressed,” says Stacey. “Trauma can change us on a cellular level, so if I can help somebody, it's not just helping emotionally, but it helps mentally and physically later on in their lives.”

For more information, visit www.southcountycounseling.org