Meet Aimée M. Bradley MA, LMHC
Originally from the farthest regions of Northern NY, Aimée Bradley relocated to Port Angeles, WA in November 1986, and was first hired to create and direct the town’s original domestic violence shelter in January 1987. Her earliest degrees– an AAS in Early Child Education (1979 at SUNY at Cobleskill, NY) and an LPN–working as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital in Sarasota, Fl. were instrumental in claiming her passion as a compassionate therapist today. Aimée was lead teacher and Childcare Specialist at her local college’s lab pre-school from ’97-2003. She received her BA in Psychology from Argosy, Seattle in 2010, and her MA in Counseling Psychology from Argosy University, Seattle, 2013. with an internship at Jefferson Mental Health Services, Port Townsend, WA (2012-13). While working with the eclectic therapy modes that arise from typical talk therapy since 2013, Aimee’s current specialty is Sandtray Therapy. To date, she has attended 5 years of Sandtray trainings, both with the Southern Sandtray Institute and with the World Sandtray Association.
Welcome to Honored Spaces Sandtray Therapy!
(Formally, Honored Spaces Psychotherapy)
What is “sandtray therapy” and who benefits from this therapy modality? Anyone (adults, children and teens) who have experienced trauma, grief, anxiety, depression, ADHD, low self-esteem, Etc., all can be very positively impacted from sandtray work. Sandtray therapy may look like child’s play, but it is a highly therapeutic, often a nonverbal, multidimensional therapy technique that can provide emotional release, freedom of expression and cognitive growth and healing. Some clients who have shown a limited response to other forms of therapy have been seen to respond well to sandtray therapy. This mode of therapy also works well alongside conventional talk therapy.
The sandtray therapy’s safe environment fosters an atmosphere free from threat and offers a critical outlet which encourages the processing and trust building needed for emotional healing. Sandtray therapy can begin facilitating change neurobiologically. Allowing individuals to gain insight and courage once recognizing and acting on the cognitive shifts that can be experienced with the sand tray medium. This symbolic process is created using a series of miniature objects as representations of people and events that the client has experienced (or even just one’s hands in the sand without figures).
“Compassion, mindfulness and a tenacious spirit–that is what I bring to the team that we become, as we work together to assist in the re-connection of interpersonal issues needing introspection, acceptance and resolution. I look forward to answering any questions you may have and sharing the sandtray therapy modality with you soon.”
– Aimée M. Bradley