Professional Christian Counseling
Cumming, Alpharetta, Dawsonville,
Johns Creek & the surrounding areas
Professional Christian Counseling
Cumming, Alpharetta, Dawsonville,
Johns Creek & the surrounding areas
- …
"Stopped panic & feeling of being paralyzed...
eliminated triggers related to an abuser"
I met Carla after doing a session with Laney Rosenzweig, where I had done an ART session to help me deal with the shock, trauma, and anger from an ungodly injustice someone had done to me and my family. I had been ‘stuck’ as you might say, and every time I revisited what had been done, I literally felt like I couldn’t breathe. In one session, Laney was able to trick my brain into hold the memories but stopped the physical responses that had been paralyzing me. I just couldn’t believe it. I tried to make myself feel them, but they were gone. It was nothing short of a miracle.
After a few months, I realized that although I was free of the shock and trauma, I was going to have to deal with the perpetrator for a number of years—and I then found Carla. In two sessions, using the magic of ART, Carla gave my conscious and non-conscious self the ability to face him and deal with him with zero stress or angst. Zero. Although I dread having to deal with this person, I can do it in a calm, non-emotive manner. This is critical in certain life situations, especially if the courts are involved. It is also critical to my health, as I know that emotions and
unresolved issues are one of the leading causes of longstanding health challenges.
I am so grateful for ART.
I wish I was a millionaire so that I could get it for every single person out there suffering from something.”
Childhood Trauma Healed
"Lighter Body and Freer Spirit"
I’m a 49 year old female, I was made aware of A R T from Carla Burran when she was working on her certification. She needed practicum hours and asked if I would be a guinea pig. After watching a few YouTube videos about it, I was convinced this was something I wanted to try myself. I went into my first session with no expectations. Not sure how it really worked, I was open to whatever process was before me and I knew Carla was very excited about the results she had been seeing with ART.
One of the things I really liked about this therapy was that I didn’t have to share any details of the traumatic event with my counselor if I didn’t want to. How I had always done counseling before was sharing my traumas over and over until they supposedly no longer have an effect. But even after years of talk therapy, I had ended up in the ER with what turned out to be a panic attack, triggered from an event that reminded me of a significant loss in my life.
There was no ‘hashing it out” with ART. It was almost a one and done for me. During my first session, Carla asked me a series of questions about a specific painful memory that I chose. Reliving that trauma one last time and changing the narrative was so fascinating to me. The brain is super creative and ART taps into that creativity. At one point during my session, I found myself laughing, uncontrollably. I’m not sure where that came from, but I can imagine it was from my emotions releasing the trauma that I had been holding on to, relating the that specific event we were working through.
After about 90 minutes, I felt lighter in my body and freer in my spirit.
What has been the most amazing thing to me since my first ART session is what took place months afterwards. I realized that my heart and mind have not only let go of the trauma caused by the actions of this person, but much to my surprise, it allowed me to turn towards and lean into this person in a way I have never done before. When I did this, it was almost without any awareness or conscious effort on my part, it felt natural. There are still boundaries around this person, but they can coincide with forgiveness and empathy, something I would have never thought possible.
I learned that who I was that day is not really who I am. I had been carrying around the shrapnel of unforgiveness and triggers of past traumas without even knowing it. My trauma damaged my body, my mind, and my spirit in ways I never understood before. I highly, highly recommend ART for everyone. We’ve all experienced trauma in our lives that we still carry around today, most of the time without even knowing it. There’s hope for healing and ART offers that!
Childhood emotional abuse healed
Reactions went from shame and resentment to sympathy
I had never realized that the reactions I had when I was around certain people was a response to trauma. I would become irritable and defensive (among other unflattering emotions) or just shut down completely. I wanted so badly to forgive people in my family and forget the past. It is always hardest to forgive people do not have any remorse for the pain they caused. I would pray for God to help me forgive and I would feel better for awhile., then BAM another “dig”, a lie, or insult would be hurled at me out of the blue, just when I thought it was safe to let my guard down. I would react as if I were a child again, and I could not control my words or my reactions. Forgiveness is especially hard when the person hurting you doesn't care or may not capable of caring!
What I learned about trauma while working with Carla Burran, was that trauma triggers brought the past into the present in my body. No wonder it was so hard to forgive things that happened to me decades ago, they were happening all over again in my body anytime I was triggered. I decided to give ART a try.. It was very different than any therapy I had tried before but now that I understood what my "triggers" were I decided it couldn't hurt.
During my first ART session, the hurt, shame, and resentment that I had carried for nearly 50 years dissolved into sympathy for someone I loved. I was able to see the family member (who had berated me my entire life), as just another hurting soul. Carla helped me incorporate my Christian beliefs and values into my “new memories”. The “memory replacement” part was fun, we both laughed at what my mind created to replace the bad memories. Since ART, when I think back on the emotional abuse I suffered, I see my “new” memories like they were a vivid dream., the old images are fuzzy. I know my imagined memories are not real, but they somehow stopped that negative loop that had been playing over and over in my brain for years.
It's hard to explain how my body, my mind, and my soul felt afterwards, I felt lighter and calmer but most of all I felt hopeful that I could finally let my past go.
It has been almost 2 years since I first tried ART, those old memories no longer have power over me. and I was able to forgive the people who hurt me and live a much healthier life. I have continued with ART to help me deal with my anxiety, phobias, and my work relationships. Every ART session is a little different depending on what I want to work on that day. When feel triggered, or overreact to a situation, I have learned to ask myself “what was that all about”? I have continued monthly therapy with Carla, when I run into problems that need to be resolved, we just schedule an ART session, and trust my brain( as Carla always says). I am no longer intimidated by a therapy that I didn't understand, and I am free of the resentment that carried with me far too long. I wish you the best on your own healing journey!
Medical Trauma Healed , Peace of Mind & Body Restored
“…It frightened me to the core of my being….at the end of one session I looked at what had happened to me in a totally different way…”
As a mom of an adult daughter, I had experienced the of the scariest time of my life. Due to a health issue my daughter was put on medication which caused her to have physiological issues of extreme anxiety, jumpiness, and constant crying. During the time of her crisis, I put on a brave face and took charge of the situation, but in the moments, I was alone I would fall to pieces in the deepest despair I had ever felt in my life.
After a few weeks we were able to determine what the problem was and get her the help she needed. Prior to this there were times in my life that I experienced difficult situations, but nothing had ever affected me the way this had. It frightened me to the very core of my being, as I thought we had lost her, and she would never be the same. Several years later, I was diagnosed with a non-life-threatening condition but became terrified and very anxious of what was happening to me. I was living with the constant what-ifs, shutting out anything positive and living in fear. Often, I would hear my doctors tell me “It was nothing to worry about” but I could not believe them. I was having the same anxiety that I had felt during my daughter’s medical trauma.
When I learned about ART through counseling with Carla Burran, I was not sure that it would work for me, but I trusted Carla. At first, the thought of the eye moments bothered me. But I worked my way through that and focused more on the images I pictured than what my eyes were doing. In the first session, Carla walked me through different scenes that had taken place during my daughter’s crisis, and I was able to creatively add happier memories into those same scenes. I saw everything in such vivid colors, and it was all very relaxing. Almost to the point of having a good time processing what had been the most frightening moments in my life. I was also able to bring in a mental “helper” who was there for me and who took care of everything that needed to be taken care of when I became triggered. At the end I painted over all the dark memories with bright beautiful colors, the dark scenes never to be seen again.
At the end of that very first one-hour session, I looked at what had happened with my daughter and what was going on with my health in a totally different way. I was at peace with it all and saw all the good, instead of the bad, that had come through those events in my life. Today, which is approximately 6 months from my first ART session, I am still not nearly as fearful of any health diagnosis I may receive, and I am no longer struck with the feeling of panic, or frozen in fear when I received a call from my doctor’s office. I am learning to enjoy the moment I am in and not worrying about what the future may or may not hold. ART did work for me, and it did bring a peace to my life that had been missing for a long time.
Grateful Mom, September 2022
I can eat relatively whatever I want without being terrified it will make me sick....
...It’s made a drastic change in my everyday life.
I am absolutely terrified of vomiting. I can’t stand the idea of it, the sensation of feeling even a little sick, it’s so scary. Whether it's someone else, or me, or whoever, it freaks me out. I had gotten to a point where I wouldn’t eat out, and wouldn’t have anything unless I was home. I was having multiple panic attacks a day, I wouldn’t touch most food. It was bad and affected every aspect of my life. I stopped going out, stopped hanging out with friends, became obsessed with cleaning, and had an incessant need for some way to feel in control. Then I was introduced to ART.
It took literally one session. Obviously, everyone is different, and some may need more sessions than others, but I’ve responded fairly quickly to the process for the few sessions I’ve done for different problems. Art is a nonconventional way of treating things like phobias or trauma, and I’ve experienced only positive outcomes in all my situations. I don’t remember feeling any weird sensations, but I did notice I had an amazing night's sleep the night after the session.
ART took me from not leaving my room, having several panic attacks daily, and running myself down to being able to get back into working full shifts, going out, and enjoying life again. I can eat relatively whatever I want without being terrified it will make me sick. Every now and then anxiety will creep up but I’m finally able to handle it by myself and push through until it dissipates. It’s made a drastic change in my everyday life.
Obtained Contentment and Well Being, like Never Before
"....it has changed me in every tiny little way, right down to how my lungs take in and release air".
Debilitating panic attacks brought me to Carla for ART. I realized my experiences were out of proportion, that despite my high degree of self-awareness, off the chart amounts of discipline, my deeply rooted faith and regardless of my actual circumstances, I was simply unable to cope with the simplest conversation around my triggers, even with events that weren’t related to me at all. Once triggered I suffered from intense stomach cramps, sweating, elevated heart rate, insomnia, hypervigilance, and a pervasive sense of dread that could last for days. This was taxing on my most intimate relationships, left me feeling like an inadequate spouse and siphoned joy from my life. I had seen other therapists in the past, I was more than willing to do whatever was necessary to find help. ART seemed like a good option because it isn’t meant to drag on forever. Not that I wasn’t willing to talk my way through it, but over time, the talking process was costly and hadn’t made anything better. After only 3 sessions we got to the root of the trauma. How can so much change so quickly and so gently!?
ART was practically painless, certainly less painful than everything I’d carried around my whole life.
In fact, we laughed most of the way through the experience!
The revelations were crazy and amazing and yet made perfect sense. They came in bite sized little glimpses; slightly hazy recollections that just needed to be noticed. In my case, the trauma went so far back that I basically have no thoughts or experiences that haven’t been touched by it. We were able to get all the way back there. I found healing not only for the problem that plagued me, but through ART, my entire identity has been reformed. Before this work I lived as an “inconvenient burden” to my family. This belief created the primary goal of my life, to make myself as minimal as possible. I lived so small, so unimpactful. I was so afraid to completely exhale, afraid to lean too heavily on anyone, including Jesus. Never wanting to be a bother or an inconvenience, resenting every need I had and loathing each of my desires. I was desperate to earn my keep and cover more than my share, leaving me feeling anxious, unknown, unappreciated, and exhausted.
After ART, I can have the important logistical conversations life requires, but more importantly, I can now let go. I can exhale and not feel this guilt for my next breath, but gratitude for it instead! I can live and breathe deeply and joyfully with great pleasure and peace. I believe I can be truly known and fully loved in a way that had always evaded me. I can step into my life for the first time, not feeling like I’m on eggshells. It’s unknown yet in what great ways ART will permanently change me, but I do know it has changed me in every tiny little way, right down to how my lungs take in and release air. Every single breath, all day long and all through the night, carries with it a contentment and a well-being that I have never known before.
Carla is so fantastic! You get the feeling that you’ve known her forever, that you can’t tell her anything that she hasn’t heard before and that she is wide open to walking through this process with you. Her enthusiasm for our good creation and genuine desire to see healing for you are her greatest attributes.
If you have a nagging experience that you just can’t shake, even if you can’t describe it, even if you can’t make any sense of it (maybe especially if you can’t make any sense of it), when it feels like no amount of talking is going to change anything, when you can’t convince yourself with logic, when no one else can say what you need to hear (and even if they did you wouldn’t believe them), when you have no actual evidence or proof but you know something is definitely there that needs to go, give Accelerated Resolution Therapy a try ( ART).
PTSD Resolved
“I realized I had forgotten what “relaxed” felt like!”
I heard about ART from my counselor Carla Burran, she recommended that I try to deal with a really bad situation I had experienced years earlier. I thought I was over that experience but after learning what triggers were, I realized this was something that I was constantly being triggered by it. I felt stressed out most of the time and my body was always tight and tense. I was jumpy and startled easily. I always felt like there was hole in my chest and my throat. I had developed severe insomnia over the last few years, as well as an eating disorder.
The anxiety, I felt was so intense, when I tried to eat, I was could rarely keep anything down. After my first ART session, I felt completely relaxed as if I could sleep for a week, my bad memories felt like a distant dream, and I had created new memories for my brain to see instead of the old pictures in my mind. Afterwards, my muscles were not tight like before, I realized I had forgotten what “relaxed” felt like! The time I spent processing my memories changed the way I saw myself, my confidence, and mostly my desire to be around others. After my session, I went out and enjoyed a large cheeseburger and took a long nap!
"...she understood that she didn’t need to talk about her story—she simply needed to hold it in her mind and follow the cues...This therapy modality is a gift from God, and it may have saved her life.”
“As a ‘trauma momma’, I have been on a journey for almost a year to help my teen deal with years of historical abuse that had been fairly recently disclosed. At that point, we had tried it all—talk therapy, DBT therapy, ketamine, hypnotherapy—you name it. Nothing was helping and, if I’m to be honest, talking about her trauma was making it worse.
I discovered ART via a friend and plunged headfirst into understanding it. I watched the YouTube videos, read Laney’s book and called Laney and her partner and spoke to them for an hour. We flew up to Hartford and my girl did a session with her. She did NOT want to do it, but once we got there and Laney took her in, she understood that she didn’t need to talk about her story—she simply needed to hold it in her mind and follow the cues.
She went into that session a hot mess, but came out an hour later, looked at me said, “Mom, I can do ANYTHING. I know that now.” It was a miracle. Laney explained that even she doesn’t fully understand how it works, but she DOES know that it tricks the limbic system into attaching different physical responses to a trauma experience that replaces the negative ones that show up autonomically. The impact was nothing short of miraculous. In one session, my daughter was able to revisit memories that triggered self-loathing, self-harming and shame and embrace that what happened was not her fault. One session. This therapy modality is a gift from God, and it may have saved her life.”
" much lower level of anxiety after ART"
I come from an abuse background in early childhood, and the abuse was still affecting my ability to be fully present in my body. I have done much talk therapy and energy healing around this issue, which was impactful, but many symptoms remained. I had one orientation session and one ART session with Carla, and I was surprised at how effective ART was at reducing my symptoms! Now I can experience the same triggers (like troubling memories) with a much lower level of distress. Carla was knowledgeable, supportive and delightful to work with. I have recommended her to many of my friends and clients. If you're wondering whether ART might be helpful to you, don't hesitate to give her a call! You'll be so glad you did.
\
Copyright 2018-2023