About Me

Elizabeth Venart, M.Ed., NCC, LPC is the Director of The Resiliency Center and a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Pennsylvania. A trauma-informed therapist with nearly thirty years of experience, she is a Certified EMDR Therapist and an EMDRIA-Approved Consultant. Her extensive training in IFS (Internal Family Systems therapy) includes completion of Level 1, Level 2, and advanced trainings and serving as a Guide in Bruce Hersey’s trainings in IFS and the Integration of EMDR and IFS. Elizabeth is also a National Certified Counselor through the National Board of Certified Counselors.

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are really princesses who are only waiting to see us once, beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest being, something helpless that wants our love.” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Individual and Group Counseling

For nearly 30 years, Elizabeth has had the honor of providing individual, couples, and group counseling, supervising and mentoring therapists, and leading training programs.

» Learn about my Counseling services

Working with Highly Sensitive Persons

Elizabeth first learned about the trait of high sensitivity in 2007 through friend and professional colleague, Sarah O’Doherty. Since that time she has read everything she could on the trait and taken Elaine Aron’s course on Psychotherapy with the Highly Sensitive Person. She loves working with Highly Sensitive Persons to help them embrace the unique gifts of the trait (especially empathy, intuition, creativity, and deep processing) and learn strategies for navigating the potential for sensory and empathic overwhelm. Elizabeth’s counseling practice is almost entirely devoted to working with Highly Sensitive Persons, many of whom are creative artists, writers, therapists, and other healers. She has offered several well-received trainings to other professionals on working effectively with Highly Sensitive Persons using mindfulness, imagery, IFS (Internal Family Systems) and EMDR Therapy.

Working with Trauma Survivors

First as a volunteer during college and then for seven years as a young professional, Elizabeth worked in rape crisis and crime victim centers providing individual and group counseling, crisis intervention, and critical incident response to women, children, and men impacted by traumatic grief and crimes of violence. As a Counselor and then Counseling Director, she developed innovative healing programs for survivors, supervised a team of counselors and counseling interns, and trained new staff and volunteers in counseling, trauma, and crisis intervention skills. Advanced training in Critical Incident Stress Management gave her the skills needed to provide on-site response in the aftermath of September 11th and other workplace tragedies. Her extensive training in both EMDR Therapy and IFS provide her with the tools necessary to support clients in transforming trauma and experiencing comprehensive, lasting change.

Working with Children and Families

Her work experience has included being a school counselor in two different school settings: an alternative school for children with behavioral and learning challenges and an independent school for boys. Across both settings, she provided individual and group counseling and trainings for school personnel and parents, and gained an extensive understanding of the multiple needs facing families today.

Private Practice since 1998

My counseling office at The Resiliency Center

My counseling office at The Resiliency Center

Her counseling office at The Resiliency Center

In private practice since 1998, she founded The Resiliency Center in 2008 as a place for practitioners from diverse perspectives on healing to come together in community. Through their individual practices, they offer individual, couples, and family counseling, expressive arts therapy, play therapy, somatic therapy, writing workshops, movement classes, meditation, laughter yoga, and spiritual poetry evenings. Together as a community, they also provide educational talks, groups, training programs for therapists, and fun opportunities for people in the community to learn, play, share, and connect with one other.

» Learn more about The Resiliency Center

Advanced Training

Elizabeth is a Certified EMDR Therapist and EMDRIA-Approved Consultant. Advanced trainings in EMDR Therapy have included a focus on healing complex trauma and anxiety, addressing somatic/body-based disturbances, and enhancing creativity and performance. Elizabeth is also Certified in Internal Family Systems Therapy and has found the integration of IFS and EMDR Therapy to be the most powerful support for clients seeking trauma healing and transformational change. After serving as a Guide with Bruce Hersey on his trainings integrating IFS and EMDR Therapies, Elizabeth moved into the role of Lead Trainer with Syzygy Institute (https://www.syzygyinstitute.com/) in 2022. Elizabeth Venart offers individual and group consultation to therapists seeking to strengthen their skills and gain certification. Initially trained in EMDR over twenty years ago, Elizabeth has used EMDR Therapy successfully with hundreds of clients with diverse presenting issues.

Elizabeth was the Regional Coordinator for the Montgomery-Bucks EMDRIA Regional Network for ten years (until EMDRIA ended the program in 2020) and continues to host free monthly gatherings for EMDR Therapists in the Greater Philadelphia area. She is passionate about building a professional community of trauma-informed clinicians.

» Learn about my EMDR services

Ongoing study includes the integration of mindfulness-based, mind-body healing practices, artistic expression and poetry writing, laughter yoga, and the use of metaphor in helping people create new stories for their lives. Additionally, she has advanced training in Couples Therapy and Play Therapy.

Consultation and Training for Professional Helpers

slide-training

Elizabeth began supervising staff, interns, and volunteers in her role as Counseling Director at Victim Services Center in 1997 and has continued to provide clinical supervision and consultation since that time across a variety of settings. In 1996, in response to growing awareness of the secondary impact of trauma work on practitioners and organizations, she offered her first workshop on vicarious trauma and practitioner self-care. Since then, she has offered programs on trauma, wellness and systemic vicarious trauma at The Resiliency Center, national conferences, and on site at educational and human services organizations. She has also worked with organizations to provide individual and small group self-care sessions and vicarious trauma consultations. Supporting practitioners from a variety of disciplines, she also offers career coaching and practice-building guidance.

From 2003-2007, she served on the American Counseling Association’s Task Force on Counselor Wellness and Impairment. Her work included developing content for the ACA website, leading programs to facilitate counselor wellness, and co-editing a special issue on Counselor Wellness for The Journal of the Counseling Association for Humanistic Education and Development.

» Learn about my Professional Trainings on Trauma & Resiliency