Cleveland, Ohio
Therapy for First Responders in Cleveland, OH
For responders working the city, the inner ring and the smaller departments across Cuyahoga County.
Small Department, Everybody Knows
A lot of the departments around here are not large. Twenty people, forty people, mutual aid with the next town over. That means the person handling peer support is also the person you rode with last week, and the station is a place where somebody taking a Thursday afternoon off gets noticed and discussed.
It also means the bad calls are shared. When something goes wrong in a small jurisdiction, everybody on that roster was either there or heard it live, and nobody gets to be the neutral person the others process it with.
Completely Outside It
I am not from your department and I am not connected to it. No contract with any agency, union, municipality or employer program in Ohio or Kentucky. No reports to supervisors. No fitness-for-duty opinions and no letters written for anyone else's decision.
Because sessions are by video, there is no lot where a marked car might be seen and no office door with your name on a schedule. Several people have told me that alone was what finally made them book something.
What the Work Involves
We take one run at a time rather than the whole career. Eye movements while you hold the image, the body reaction addressed first, then the picture changed to something you choose. You do not need to describe the scene in detail for the protocol to work, which matters to people who have already written the report and do not want to write it again out loud.
Sessions are 60 minutes or up to three hours as an intensive. There is no Cleveland office and no in-person option. Adults only, private pay, and you need to be physically in Ohio or Kentucky.
This is not a crisis service.
If you are in crisis, please call or text 988, call 911, or go to your nearest emergency room. ART is not appropriate during active psychosis or acute crisis. Individual outcomes vary.
Also in Cleveland
Everything here is by secure video, so where you are in Cleveland makes no difference to the work. These are the other things I am most often asked about locally.
Fifteen minutes, nobody at the station knows.
A short call by phone or video. No commitment attached to it.