Former Pine Lodge psychologists practice multiple forms of therapy at Medical Lake's Briar Rose Center
By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
Psychologist Kimberly Cole used to see patients within the walls of a prison, but these days she's helping people break out from behind less tangible walls at her practice in Medical Lake.
“It doesn't matter if it's in prison or out of prison, even people who come in here off the street might be in their own prison, but it's internal,” she said.
Cole was the lead psychologist at Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women before the facility closed in late May due to state budget cuts. When layoffs became a certainty she decided to dive full time into a therapy practice of her own, inviting Susan Van Wormer, a psychology associate at the prison, to join her as a licensed mental health counselor.
The colleagues now operate a psychotherapy practice called Briar Rose Center: The Home of Hope and Healing, from a location at North 108 Jefferson St., across the street from Coney Island Park in Medical Lake.
Van Wormer said the relaxed setting is ideal for the kind of work they do. “When you're dealing with somebody with a trauma or any kind of anxiety, to go seek treatment in a busy area like downtown Spokane, it's intimidating,” she said.
The practice has drawn a wide variety of patients from as far away as Yakima, Wash. – men, women and children who might be seeking help with everything from depression to severe trauma, which is the center's specialty.
Van Wormer said her duties at Pine Lodge opened her eyes to the lack of services in this area. “Through the intakes and assessments I got to see the numbers of women in the system with history of trauma,” she said. “I started realizing that if numbers are that big in here it's got to be huge out in the community.”
Cole said many of the women she saw at the prison lacked basic living skills due to suffering trauma at an early age. “A lot of times I had women who said being in prison is the safest place I've ever been,” she said. “Women typically do very well in that environment because it's very structured. It's consistent and they have someone telling them what to do, when to do it, how to do it, but it's also disempowering.”
When offenders are released they frequently end up in prison again because they don't know how to function in the outside world, Cole said. Whether it's inmates or people on the street, she said her objective is always to identify and treat a trauma, then teach patients effective coping skills so that they can learn to be effective, empowered members of their community.
Her primary method is called Feminist Therapy, which she said is about acknowledging power differentials, not just between women and men but also with society in general. From her first meeting with a new patient Cole said she tries to level the playing field as much as possible. “It's not about you coming into therapy and I'm the doctor and I'm going to tell you everything that's going to happen,” she said. “Yes, I am the expert in certain things but you are also the expert in your own experiences and we're going to work together as a team to figure out the most effective treatment for you.”
Running her own practice outside the Department of Corrections has been a liberating experience for Cole, who is now developing long-term plans for an inpatient trauma center, a multi-acre facility that would offer intensive treatment for complex trauma survivors. Nothing like this currently exists in the Spokane area, so Cole said the plan will take a fair amount of research as well as funding.
For the time being, both she and Van Wormer are happy to help their patients in Medical Lake.
“If you look at the whole picture of all the badness and all the sadness that's out there you're going to become overwhelmed,” Cole said. “But if I can make a difference in one person's life then all the stuff I went through to get my doctorate, everything I went through was worth it.”
For more information visit http://www.drkimberlycole.com or call 299-6200.
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected].
Reader Comments(0)