Introducing: Jessica Ritchey, MA, LMFT

We are so happy to welcome Jessica to our Team! Jessica is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist with a Master's degree from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. She has 10+ years of experience working in the mental health field and is excited to continue this work with Birch. She enjoys working with individuals ages 16+ and has a special interest working with couples.

Jessica's areas of specialty include mood-spectrum disorders, trauma, relationship issues, coping with mental illness at home, parenting interventions, as well as grief and loss. Her therapeutic roots are with Gottman Theory and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples, Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and Brainspotting for trauma treatment, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for emotion dysregulation challenges, however she tends to be integrative and brings in tools from Internal Family Systems (IFS), as well as mindfulness-based and strengths-based interventions as appropriate with clients.

Outside of the office Jessica enjoys spending time with friends and family, going for walks and hikes with the dog, working on jigsaw puzzles, trying new foods/restaurants, visiting the ocean, and tending to her garden.

What Trauma Looks Likes →

In this powerful short film from producers Nathanael Matanick and Christina Matanick, we witness the impact of domestic violence on a young girl.  The consequences of her caregivers’ violence are far-reaching.  The girl's world is shattered, her family breaks apart, and her life is turned up-side-down.   

This is trauma.

This film shows graphically how trauma fragments the world outside.  But it also depicts how the world within is injured.  Trauma undermines self-esteem and erodes trust,  setting the stage for difficulties ahead.

As difficult as it is to watch,  the film illuminates the core elements of trauma.  It offers a starting place for understanding, repair, and hope.

Seeking Help for Opioid Addictions

Opioid addiction and deaths are on the rise. In 2016, 20,101 died from opioid overdoses.  Movies like “Trainspotting” and now “Trainspotting 2” have brought some of the realities and problems of opioid use to the public eye, but perhaps glorify it unintentionally. 

For whatever reasons are causing this trend, opioid overdoses on drugs like heroin continue to be one the rise. But, how does a doctor or a friend help someone with these addictions or even in the throws of an overdose? 

A Safe and Tested Solution
A medication called Naloxone has been used since 1961 by paramedics and first responders in 28 states to reverse the effects ofdrug overdoses. Naloxone is administered either through the nose (intranasal), as an intramuscular injection, or intravenously.

In the United States, naloxone is classified as a prescription medication, but is not a controlled substance. While it is legal to prescribe naloxone in every state, dispensing the drug by medical professionals (including physicians or other licensed prescribers) at the point of service is subject to rules that vary by jurisdiction. 

Obtaining Naxolone
In most states, you can purchase naloxone from a pharmacist directly without getting a prescription from a doctor. In Australia, as of February 1, 2016, naloxone is now available over-the-counter (OTC) in pharmacies without a prescription. It comes in single use filled syringe similar to law enforcement kits. In Canada, naloxone single-use syringe kits are distributed and available at various clinics and emergency rooms.

Avoiding Long-Term Complications
The sooner an opioid overdose is treated, the better, because it’s not just death that is the worry, but permanent brain damage and other injuries related to overdose. Even if you are not sure if someone is suffering an opioid overdose, Naloxone has been found to be safe and would have no effect on anyone without opioids in their system. The benefits of increasing availability of naloxone outweigh the risks. 

If you or someone you know has an opioid problem, get help as soon as possible in order to save their life. 

You are NOT your problems.

It takes a lot of courage to ask for help. And, it usually takes a lot of time to muster up that courage. 

But, by the time you ask, you’ve most likely internalized your problems. 

Internalizing problems over a long period of time can lead to ‘absorbing’ the problems into our identity, meaning you begin to define yourself by the problems. This not only exacerbates your problems, but it also becomes a malicious adversary in our lives. 

When you realize this, it’s time to begin to view problems as being ‘other’ and therefore able to be influenced, challenged, changed, even eradicated.

Therapy can help challenge any preexisting internalization of the problem. That is to say, therapy can be understood, in part, as a process by which the individual can begin to be separated from his/her problematic symptoms. 

No matter how educated we may be and intellectually or emotionally sophisticated; in the quiet moments when our problem presents as overwhelming how long until some version of the internal message ‘what is wrong with me?’ enters into our consciousness.

We live in a society that relentlessly facilitates the internalization of our problems; intertwined into the habitual fabric of our lives. Some of us grow up in homes where shameful messages were ever present. ‘Something is wrong’ so often became ‘something is wrong with me’. If our problematic symptoms are indivisible from ourselves then we are condemned to being ‘less than’, ‘broken’, being ‘apart from’. 

But this is not true.

• You are NOT your symptoms. 
  • You are NOT your problems. 
    • You are NOT your thoughts.

Through Narrative Therapy, we can help you externalize the problems and affirm that you are not the problem, rather the problem is the problem. 

We are here to help.