LEYA WORCESTER BRAY, TRAUMA THERAPIST IN ORANGE COUNTY & CA
Healing is possible.
It’s easy to lose yourself in your family, partner, job, or your feelings.
We can be so distracted these days. Whether you’re raising children, living with illness, or stressing over a strained relationship, it’s understandable how your focus goes outward and you lose connection to yourself. Even your own pain is somehow downplayed. To the world you may seem whole, but deep down you feel lost and broken. You’re not sure if healing is within reach.
I get it.
I’m Leya.
I’m a licensed therapist and I’ve dedicated my career to helping adults who have overcome a tremendous amount of trauma. The first part of my career was spent treating substance use issues, and this is where I recognized the complexity of codependency issues and my own codependence. I also learned how important it was to have healthy perspective and skills that could get you closer to the life that you want.
My personal and professional journey led me toward Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and mindfulness. Extensive training in these three fabulous methods has allowed me to help many people transform extreme, survival-based coping to balanced, wise-minded coping. I found personal transformation with these methods as well. I mean, how can we be expected to do life differently if we don’t know how?
We are expected to shape up, get over, or deal with what’s thrown at us in what often feels like impossible situations. No wonder we do the unhealthy things we do. I know what it’s like to lose yourself in codependency. I know what trauma does to the mind, body, and spirit. And, I know that your healing is possible, and that you don’t have to settle with the way life is right now.
You don’t have to do this alone.
I work well with clients who:
Are eager to learn about themselves and their past so that they can gain perspective and insight about their present lives
Are open to learning new skills that will help them find more peace and balance in their relationships and lives
Can see the value in having a healthy relationship with themselves, even if it’s a struggle
Want to experience a deeper connection with the people they love
Value kindness, personal growth, relationship, knowledge, and faith (in anything meaningful, including a higher power)
What it’s like to work with me
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In the beginning, we’ll be getting to know each other and I’ll be eager to learn more about you. We’ll look at what brought you to therapy, what’s working for you, what’s not working, what you want to achieve, and how I’m going to support you in getting there.
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We will look back at your childhood and other important events of your life to see how you view yourself and the world around you. This will help uncover the unhelpful beliefs we often hold about ourselves, which influence what we do. We will work together at looking at you through a different lens–a kind, understanding lens.
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Once you better understand who you are and why your mind operates the way it does, we can begin to process any thoughts or emotions that have you feeling stuck. I help you shift the way you think about the past and why you think it happened, whether you have trauma or not, so that intense feelings go down. I use Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) to help you get there.
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I will teach you essential life skills. I call them life skills because these are skills we all need: challenging your unhelpful thoughts in order to have a healthy perspective on life, getting through painful situations without making them worse, getting your needs met, how to improve relationships, having more respect for yourself and your boundaries, how to ground yourself in stressful situations, and feeling your emotions safely.
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As we come to a close in therapy, we review all the insights you’ve learned about yourself, acknowledge your success, and then look at what’s next for you in life. This is the time to celebrate you and your hard work!
Training & Education
Education & Licensure
Master’s of Social Work, University of Southern California, 2012
Licensed Clinical Social Worker #76163 (California), eff. 2017
Training & Certifications
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) - Intensively trained
Professional Associations
National Association of Social Workers
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
Orange County Shrinks
Specializing in:
