Clear Blue Sky

EMDR Therapy | Consultation 


We're about possibilities. Growth after the storm. 

Starting fresh and seeing the rainbow.

Intensive EMDR Therapy gets you there faster.

 
 








Changing the model of therapy to meet client needs

You have a lot on your schedule. Finding a weekly hour might not be it. Flexibility in how you receive therapeutic support is important, and the traditional model of weekly psychotherapy is shifting to meet your needs.

Traditional talk therapy is a long-term support system to help you work through life challenges over time. But two things keep coming up for you:
    • Your schedule is demanding and unpredictable, making a weekly therapy appointment feel overwhelming.
    • You feel like you need help, and quickly. The idea of spending months in talk therapy makes it feel impossible to ever feel better.
Learn more about Katherine here, and why she's passionate about adjusting to the needs of clients.












How Would My EMDR Session Work for Me?
How Do EMDR Intensives Work? 

EMDR Intensives Support those who find traditional talk therapy to be too disruptive to their already hectic lives and those who need to feel better now. Whatever the reason that weekly sessions just won’t work for you, EMDR intensives are available to support you during times you need help the most.
Many of our clients traveled to Rochester to go to the Clinic for specialized care. The stress and trauma of serious medical conditions, caregiving, and life at home can all take their toll. While you're here to heal, or taking care of someone trying to heal, we can help. 
Read my blog post about why I'm making this change, and the benefits to clients that have already been observed here.
 

Important Note

EMDR is not just for trauma; it is also used for performance enhancement, to excel in areas such as athletics, work settings, and relationships. It can help you overcome your obstacles and work toward your goals. 

Treatment for Medical Trauma in the Med City
 
Patients, Caregivers, Providers
Life and Death Decisions, long struggles with illness, lives changed from diagnosis to care.  You might have experienced trauma as you were part of trying to heal.  We can help. 

Personalized to your goals

EMDR Intensives are personalized treatment plans that allow you to skip the waitlist by giving you faster access to select spots, and are designed to support your preferred schedule and timeline for your treatment goals. 
What Clients Discover About Themselves After EMDR
Here are the new positive beliefs clients have left EMDR believing in their minds, emotions and their bodies:

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Thanks to Katherine and EMDR, I have far less crippling self-doubt, more genuine confidence, and far less fear than I used to of my ability to do my job well.

Anonymous

This therapy has been life changing over the past year now, and it continues to help me long after the sessions were done. I can't recommend Clear Blue Sky and EMDR enough.

Anonymous



What Do I Get With An Intensive?
Your Intensive Includes
All Elements are Personalized to You and Your Goals

  • Pre-consultation interview to assess for candidacy, as well as target unpleasant beliefs, body sensations, emotions, or images from which you are seeking relief
  • HeartMath Sensor and training in interventions to learn about and manage stress with real-time feedback you can practice with before, during and after our sessions.
  • Personalized treatment workbook, which allows you to work on your treatment goals before, during, and after our intensive sessions.
  • A customized treatment program with targeted treatment goals. Therapy with Katherine is done either in person or virtually, often for 3 sessions (3 to 4 hours each session).
  • Post-treatment interview to assess and support your adaptation to positive changes from treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions
I need to know more




What kind of therapy do you offer?
My passion is utilizing the powerful benefits of EMDR with clients who are ready to live without anxiety, depression, dissociation, phobias, addiction, and post-traumatic stress. As a client in my private practice, you will receive your own, client-centered therapeutic process.

My approach is relational, and integrates what we know about neurobiology, ego states, and attachment in order to alleviate anxiety, depression, and trauma symptoms. I am an EMDRIA-Certified therapist with advanced training in EMDR, Attachment Trauma, and Performance Enhancement. I also offer clients expertise in how people learn and change from my 20 years of training, research, and practice in settings from Community Mental Health, the Mayo Clinic and forensic settings. I believe in clinical excellence, always.

We will choose a mix of techniques and frameworks that are most beneficial for you.

Please note that I only offer EMDR for clients physically in the state of Minnesota, Wisconsin or Massachusetts. If you do not live in one of these states, we can arrange for you to fly here for EMDR treatment, potentially while you seek additional medical care nearby

Can EMDR Help Me?
It’s highly likely. EMDR can be effectively used for:
  • Resourcing: We will work to strengthen internal resources while soothing parts of you that feel limited. EMDR uses images, emotions, body sensations, and positive cognitions to increase feelings of calm, safety, and confidence.
  • Resolving relationship difficulties: Attachment-focused EMDR works to repair unmet development needs (often called attachment wounding) when we have experienced an absence of care/neglect or abuse.
  • Trauma recovery: While I often utilize EMDR for clients with big “T” trauma (e.g. a major car accident, assault), I also support clients with small “t” traumas (e.g. chronic or ongoing stressful conditions, such as interpersonal conflict, difficult parents, financial stress). One of the most overlooked aspects of small ‘t’ traumas is their accumulated effect. Multiple, compounded small ‘t’ traumas may lead to distress in the nervous system and trouble with emotional functioning.
  • Medical Trauma: Patients, caregivers and providers are all impacted by the difficult experience medical treatment can be.  The patient's body experiences physical trauma, the patient's caregiver may experience horror and helplessness as they try to support their loved one; the provider faces the limitations of medicine and skillfulness despite their best efforts and fervent hopes.  This can be traumatic for each member, each role in the team. All deserve support. 
  • Performance enhancement Difficult experiences aren't just impactful on anxiety or clinical trauma response.  They can impact a person's ability to respond quickly and effectively in high pressure situations. This can be sports, medical or career performance. Often the factors compelling high performers towards their achievements include a darker fear or unresolved memories of shame and embarrassment. Others see a confident and capable person who can be a little driven and intense. Internally, no level of achievement brings the success and satisfaction they are seeking. Or, one mistake in a clutch moment causes hesitation in future situations.
EMDR engages adaptive information processing which helps the brain evolve from limiting beliefs. EMDR may avoid some of the long and difficult abreactive work often involved in the treatment of anxiety, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress symptoms (such as intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks), dissociative disorders, depression, phobias, identity crisis, and other adverse experiences.
Research in neuroplasticity demonstrates that our brain has the ability to change, create new neural pathways, and produce new neurons. Because the brain has this ability to change, we have the ability to change our way of thinking and improve mood. Neural pathways in the brain are strengthened with repetition. One way to describe this process is “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Constant repetition of an experience leads to changes within the brain’s structure and how the neurons process that experience. EMDR uses our brains’ neuroplasticity to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections, which allows the brain to compensate for injury and adjust to new situations. For more information on the benefits of EMDR, please visit my resource page.

Where and When will we work together?
I support EMDR clients who are physically in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Massachusetts in-person and online in two ways:
  • Personalized treatment programs for treatment of mental health (Intensives) including anxiety, depression adjustment, trauma and medical trauma
  • Personalized treatment programs to address blocks and yips in achieving highest potential in performance (work, sportdes, or artistic)
We will determine how long an intensive you want (one half day to 3 full days) and when it fits in the schedule. We can meet where you feel comfortable: a place you know, or a retreat setting I arrange, or online using zoom.
How often will we meet?
Treatment programs are customized for everyone's individual needs. For those on the intensive therapy plan, it can range from half-day to multi-day sessions. I no longer accept new clients for weekly one hour sessions, as I don't find that model to be best suited for the results my clients are interested in.

What if I want weekly sessions or ongoing supportive therapy?
While supportive therapy is appropriate for many clients and therapists, my focus is on working with clients who seek change and are motivated to do intensive focused work to achieve their goals. If you are in Rochester or anywhere in Minnesota and seeking ongoing supportive therapy, I'm happy to provide a list of providers in the area whom you can contact for this type of service. I recommend you start with Family Service Rochester
Are we a good fit?
Let's find out. It's important that you feel safe with your therapist. Therapy is your space to do your work. The clients in my practice have this experience with me. If we feel we are not a good fit after our initial session, I am happy to share additional referrals of trusted colleagues.



Can I use my insurance to pay for therapy?
Yes. Many insurance companies reimburse a portion of the cost of this psychotherapy. For insurance purposes, I am considered an out-of-network provider and will provide a monthly invoice for you to submit for reimbursement. It's best to determine the exact details of your policy ahead of time, including what benefits are available regarding out-of-network providers. 

Please know that I am making the choice to offer EMDR Intensive programs as I break free from the unhelpful restrictions of insurance coverage. For example, as of January 2023, most insurance stopped covering more than 75 minutes of therapy per session.  Most insurance will not cover more than one session in a day. Most insurance requires a lot of hours of paperwork on the part of providers which takes them away from the client care they entered the field to do. All insurance companies have a very confusing system of billing and requirements, tend to delay payments, and they are all known for "clawbacks" if they decide they didn't want to pay the providers what they paid, so they pull back the money they paid. This is not something that a small private practice just trying to help people can withstand.
Do you offer Sliding Scale rates?
Yes. I offer a 12-hour, sliding scale program for a limited number of clients who wish to work with me on targeted treatment goals and are not able to pay my full fee.

What is your fee?
Personalized EMDR & HeartMath treatment (called intensives) are half-day to multi-day programs that include a customized client workbook specific to your goals. Fees are based on your needs and program design, and are communicated ahead of time in accordance with the No Surprises Act. Typically intensive therapy is $275/hour for in person services and $250 for the work to prepare individualized resources unique to your goals. I prefer to work in an intensive model, meeting for three-hour sessions or longer initially, in a series of 2 or 3.  After this, working intensively in 1.5 hour sessions less often on remaining goals is definitely something that we can plan out. 































About Katherine
Helping people find their clear blue sky possibilities after their storm
Katherine Driskell, MSW, LICSW has been in the non-profit and mental health space for more than 20 years. With experience in therapy with clients from 8 to 80+, in a variety of settings, she is able to start with clients where they are, and help them reach their goals. 
She is a certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant-In-
Training through EMDRIA and a Certified HeartMath Interventions Practitioner. She is a member of the Minnesota Society for Clinical Social Work.
She focuses on motivated clients with clear goals. She helps them meet their goals through short-term intensive work focused directly on the origins of the blocks and beliefs that hold them back. She works with high achieving professionals and performers as well as individuals who have experienced traumas big and small. Located in the heart of the Destination Medical Center district in Rochester, Minnesota, she loves working with patients and their loved ones, doctors and providers to overcome the medical trauma that is sometimes part of healing and illness. She combines mental health and counseling knowledge and skills with cutting edge, research-supported approaches to remove barriers to achieving potential.  

She has worked for the State of Minnesota providing mental health care to clients with chronic mental and behavioral challenges. She was in a leadership position at the Mayo Clinic for five years before joining a local non-profit organization to guide a program providing mental health therapists to provide care in schools.

Katherine is available for Consultation for EMDR Therapists who have completed EMDRIA-Approved Basic Training and want to pursue certification.  Clickhere to join the next cohort. 

Katherine has also provided license supervision to social workers and professional clinical counselors for nearly a decade. She sought supervision outside of her place of employment as well, knowing the value of an outside perspective. Clinicians must continually reflect on their own well-being and responses to the work they do with clients. In a safe, nurturing supervisory relationship, clinicians can become the healers they seek to be. Each year she takes on a small cohort of Clinical Social Workers and candidates for licensure as Professional Clinical Counselors for license supervision. Reach out to get on the waiting list for the next cohort here