Ginny Winter

About
^{Ginny Winter}

I am a Licensed Clinical Counselor (LPC) at Foresight. I received my Master’s Degree in Transpersonal Counseling from Naropa University in Boulder in May of 2006. Even prior to graduating from graduate school my focus and passion has been to decrease stigmatization surrounding mental health and especially working within populations and individuals that often get scapegoated or minimized within our systems. The majority of my twenty plus years working has been with adolescents and children with trauma that were in the system in one form or another.. I have had the pleasure of being taught and trained while working at one of my jobs I was at the longest, by one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma/neglect and its effect on the neuro-biology of infants and children’s brain development and overall functioning. With the implementation, training, and utilization of this children that made small gains before doing “talk therapy” now were doing art therapy, animal therapy, dance therapy, music therapy, it allowed there to not only be the hope always held in my heart and witnessed at times, but truly see the changes as we implemented interventions that were developmentally on target so they could actually engage and get the most out of the therapeutic interventions and coping skills we were spending our time doing. With this comes the gift of learning individualized treatments, recommendations, interventions, and a holistic client centered approach when caring for all individuals. Therefore, I do not solely rely on one technique or modality but some are DBT, Mindfulness-Based, Person-Centered, Trauma Focused Therapy, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy just to name a few. Most recently I have been privileged to work as a Mobile Crisis Clinician and to go into the community and other places, such as our walk-in-clinic, hospitals, homes, schools , detox, side of streets, etc..to evaluate and help determine how to best help individuals. Again, not determining this on what others want to be done, but honestly empowering and truly creating a space and listening letting the client know I truly want and need to hear from them about their lives and needs. Also, I feel for some, that might have been the first time that they genuinely felt anyone just stopped to care and see them and show them kindness. More times than not it was the individual that was brought in and refusing to talk or get help that worked on what they felt they needed and often decided they did need more help and did not feel shame or a sense of weakness but relief because they were able to genuinely make that choice and engage within the process. I think it also shed another layer off the onion of mental health stigmatization and helped just one person know there could be a different outcome and one that was helpful and respectful. I look forward to continuing to do that work with every client I meet because we all are on a road together and hopefully we all choose to go down the path with kindness, compassion, and non-judgment of one another and focus on how we can feel better and be better for ourselves and for others.