SEQUOIA PDX
“There are losses that rearrange the world. Deaths that change the way you see everything, grief that tears everything down. Pain that transports you to an entirely different universe, even while everyone else thinks nothing has really changed.” — Megan Devine, It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand
Dr. Amy Berman, Ph.D., HSP, PMH-C Licensed Clinical Psychologist PSYPACT Authority to Practice Interjurisdictional Telepsychology APIT#13933 Licensed in Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, & Maryland
Dr. Amy Berman is a credentialed National Register Health Service Psychologist and an independently licensed psychologist in the states of Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Maryland and is also APIT credentialed to practice telepsychology under the authority of PSYPACT in participating states. She has been working in the mental health field since 2000 and has been providing psychotherapy services via telemental health since 2015.
Dr. Berman specializes in evidence-based psychotherapies and mindfulness, somatic and attachment focused work. Her areas of expertise include working with individuals with chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and interpersonal relationship concerns, and those who have experienced psychological trauma, grief and loss.
She also specializes in working with individuals with chronic health conditions and survivors of critical illness. She is working towards her Lifestyle Medicine Professional certification (DipACLM designation) training with The American Board of Lifestyle Medicine, which focuses on the treatment and prevention of chronic health conditions targeting the root cause of a disease through lifestyle medicine interventions.
Dr. Berman is an EMDRIA EMDR Certified Therapist and EMDRIA EMDR Approved Consultant, with a specialty in EMDR therapy for grief and loss, attachment work and complex trauma. Her therapeutic approach deeply rooted in mindful self-compassion (MSC) and she is a MSC teacher in-training with The Center for Mindful Self-Compassion, which was founded in 2012 by Dr. Chris Germer and Dr. Kristin Neff to be the global leader in self-compassion training and practice.
Her advanced professional training includes an American Psychological Association (APA) accredited doctoral residency in psychology at the Portland VA Health Care System (HCS), including clinical rotations with the Portland VA PTSD Clinic, Portland VA/Oregon Health & Science University Hospital Palliative Care Team, and the Rural Telemental Health Clinic. She received advanced specialty training in PTSD/trauma through an APA-accredited postdoctoral fellowship program at the Maryland VA HCS in Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (Ph.D.) from Tennessee State University, a Master of Arts in Education Policy from University of Maryland College Park, and an advanced graduate certificate in Working with Survivors of Violence, Torture, and Trauma from the Department of Psychology at University of Maryland College Park. She completed her earlier clinical psychology training at the Vanderbilt Medical Center with the Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt Memory and Aging Project, and the Vanderbilt University Department of Psychiatry and Vanderbilt Psychological & Counseling Center. Dr. Berman’s prior professional work experience includes longstanding service as a PTSD Clinical Team specialty provider with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She served as a clinical partner with The Headstrong Project, a non-profit mental health organization providing barrier-free and stigma-free PTSD treatment to our veterans, service members, and family connected to their care.
Dr. Berman offers mindfulness, somatic and depth work to promote profound psychological healing, growth and transformation. She is a Certified Grief Therapist trained by world-renowned grief and loss expert, David Kessler, with a specialization in traumatic grief and loss. She has advanced specialty training in the treatment of trauma/PTSD using the evidence-based gold standard therapies for PTSD: EMDR therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, Written Exposure Therapy & Narrative Exposure Therapy, in addition to Brainspotting and the Safe & Sound Protocol as adjunctive trauma therapies.
Dr. Berman is an EMDR International Association EMDR Certified Therapist and EMDR Approved Consultant with extensive advanced training in EMDR therapy for grief and Somatic and Attachment Focused EMDR therapy (SAFE EMDR), which brings in transformational aspects of body centered psychotherapies while maintaining fidelity to the EMDR therapy model. She is advanced trained in EMDR for perinatal and reproductive loss. She has completed specialty training in EMDR-informed care for 911 professionals and first responders.
She is a professional member of Postpartum Support International (PSI) and a PSI Certified Perinatal Mental Health Provider specializing in reproductive compounded grief and Perinatal Loss & Grief.
She studied Mindful Self-Compassion with the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness and a two-year Hakomi professional training program with the Hakomi Institute of the Pacific Northwest.
As a HeartMath® Certified Practitioner, she also provides heart rate variability biofeedback training for stress, anxiety and self-regulation, which can be offered as part of EMDR therapy to assist with preparation for trauma reprocessing. She also offers the Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) and the Rest & Restore Protocol (RRP) to restore vagus nervous system health using application of specially filtered sound frequencies based in Polyvagal Theory.
Dr. Berman is well versed in working with ego state interventions and Internal Family Systems, commonly known as “parts work,” and continued participation in advanced EMDR consultation training with EMDR parts work expert and author, Robin Shapiro, LICSW. Her advanced clinical training also includes the art of EMDR work for profound grief, complex trauma and dissociation with esteemed EMDR practitioners Dr. Roger Solomon and Dr. Kathleen Martin through the EMDR Institute. She also completed advanced consultation training in EMDR with the Institute for Creative Mindfulness.
In addition, Dr. Berman is a professional member of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH), an ASCH Certified Clinical Hypnosis Practitioner and a Registered Hypnotherapist in the state of Washington, with advanced specialty training in the application of clinical hypnosis within psychotherapy. She has served as Vice President on the Executive Board of the Oregon Society of Clinical Hypnosis, an ASCH component society. She enthusiastically brings her lifelong appreciation of the healing power of horses to her clients through the transformative and experiential process of equine-assisted psychotherapy as an EAGALA Certified Mental Health Professional. She received training through the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, including the facilitation of psychedelic assisted therapy integration sessions.
She is an LGBTQ+ ally and a COVID-conscious therapist.
She enjoys restoring her spirit by hiking a quiet trail in the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest. After her son’s death, she took up the art of metalsmithing as an outlet for her grief. And she continues to appreciate the meditative aspects of being seated at a work bench, setting a beautiful stone.
While Dr. Berman spent her professional career working with those facing trauma and grief, she was not exempt from suffering her own personal tragedy. She was absolutely devasted by the sudden, unexpected death of her only child, baby Kai. She also faced sudden critical illness, having survived catastrophic septic shock in the ICU and its aftermath. She deeply appreciates the many different shapes of loss, secondary loss and in/visible wounds we carry. Through her continued work in service to individuals facing suffering of all kinds, she honors her beloved Kai and those in healing.
