About Me
Welcome to Wisdom Within Counseling!
My name is Laura Fisher-Caudill (she/her), and as a trauma therapist and human, I am excited to get to know you. As a highly sensitive, empathetic person with big emotions, I love helping other empathetic humans heal from past trauma.
My journey in the mental health field began in early life through my own experiences of suffering and complex trauma in my family. Growing up in a family consumed by grief and trauma was an emotional rollercoaster. The environment around me seemed chaotic, unpredictable, and unsafe at times, which created a sense of distress, chaos, and distrust of my own intuition and wisdom within myself. I often felt overwhelmed by my emotions and would struggle to find effective ways to cope with pain and suffering from traumatic life experiences.
Through this difficulty in early life, I found solace in helping others who were also struggling through their own experiences of trauma. My passion and value of helping others pushed me forward on a path towards healing from my own experiences of trauma through a holistic healing approach, as well as helping those around me on their own journeys towards healing. I have found a home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and outside of my work my passions include travel, mindfulness and yoga practice, exploring the outdoors, being creative, playing with my incredible pack of huskies (Balto, Scout, Ruby, and Chevy-Chase), and spending time with friends and my partner.
Therapeutic Approach
Following several years of work in the mental health field in my 20’s, I decided to pursue my Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in 2016. I realized early on in my work with clients that Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was the modality to which I was most drawn and best fit my own philosophies on life and style as a therapist. Since then, I’ve specialized in helping individuals recognize and reframe their thoughts and emotions, heal from past trauma, improve their relationships with loved ones, and create their life worth living through tangible skills and changes in their behaviors.
My therapeutic framework has evolved and become more integrative throughout my experience as a trauma therapist and I am most drawn to modalities of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Somatic body based approaches to nervous system regulation and releasing stored emotions and experiences in the body through my trauma processing work with clients.
As someone who’s experienced mental health struggles and complex trauma throughout my life experience, it’s been incredibly rewarding to provide a space where people can create meaningful connections between their past experiences and current realities and work towards healing from past trauma to find their own inner control, wisdom, and growth in the process.
I am deeply committed to helping clients I work with find their inner strength, resilience, and the tools they need to heal from the past and create a life filled with purpose, joy, and fulfillment. My goal is to empower others in learning effective tools for navigating emotional distress and unburdening the pain of past trauma to create their lives worth living!
Qualifications
- Master's Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Lenoir-Rhyne University in 2018.
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Intensive Plus Training through Behavioral Tech from 2019-2020 (16 months)
- IFS Institute Online Circle Internal Family Systems Training
- Licensed Mental Health Counselor in NC (LCMHC #14598)
- Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist in NC (LCAS #24966)
- Licensed Professional Counselor in NJ (LPC #37PC00823100)
- Licensed Professional Counselor in CT (LPC #6983)
- Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in KY (LPCC #297421)
I am currently able to work with clients via telehealth who are located in North Carolina, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Kentucky.
My clients often identify as:
- Neurodivergent, specifically being highly sensitive to sensory experiences, emotionally intense, empathetic humans who identify as being gifted, ADHD, Autistic, and/or 'AuDHD'. I often work with women, and AFAB individuals, with high masking traits who were diagnosed (or self-diagnosed) as neurodivergent in adulthood.
- Cycle breakers in their family systems. They often have lived experience as the “golden child” or “scapegoat” in their family of origin. They may struggle with boundary setting or understanding the impact of childhood dynamics on their relationships and trauma responses in the present.
- Adult children of parents who were/are emotionally immature and/or have narcissistic behavior patterns.
- Living with a chronically dysregulated nervous system due to experiences of complex traumatic events throughout their lives, often beginning at a very young age.
- Somatic, or body based, symptoms of complex trauma, such as chronic pain, illness, and other distressing experiences of the physical body.
- Members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
- Parents, partners, or loved ones of members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
My clients have often experienced complex traumatic experiences throughout their lifetimes, such as:
- emotional invalidation or emotional trauma/neglect.
- criticism, and/or judgment by caregivers.
- being parentified early in life or expected (either overtly or covertly) to care for the emotional needs of their parents and not having space for their own emotions or needs.
- being placed in the role of peacekeeper in their family system.
- unmet support needs of being an undiagnosed neurodivergent person in neurotypical systems (i.e. school settings, work, and other environments) throughout childhood and adolescence.
- they may have experienced sexual, physical, or other forms of abuse as well.