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abbey saratoga
12850 saratoga ave. saratoga, ca 95070 abbey monterey 2100 garden road, bldg A -104 monterey, ca 93940 |
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as medical and mental health professionals; parents, educators, pastors, caregivers, law enforcement, educators, physicians, psychologists, clergy, supporters of healthy and mentally healthy children and families,
we commit ourselves to the sensitive, personalized practice of what Obama declared Precision Health/Mental Health treatment - "the right treatment for the right person at the right time" .
Thus, as professionals and parents/caregivers, we commit ourselves to provide constancy for our children, progressively engendering trust, and facilitating the development of
discernment and understanding, leading by example.
"the future is hope! and that hope is now!"
Pope Francis, 2015
offering Integrative treatment for children and families, we are learning, together, to provide
constancy, progressively engendering trust, facilitating the development of discernment & understanding.
we commit ourselves to the sensitive, personalized practice of what Obama declared Precision Health/Mental Health treatment - "the right treatment for the right person at the right time" .
Thus, as professionals and parents/caregivers, we commit ourselves to provide constancy for our children, progressively engendering trust, and facilitating the development of
discernment and understanding, leading by example.
"the future is hope! and that hope is now!"
Pope Francis, 2015
offering Integrative treatment for children and families, we are learning, together, to provide
constancy, progressively engendering trust, facilitating the development of discernment & understanding.
step by step, together,
as children and families heal,
we observe increases in empathy, insight,
cognitive flexibility, & compassion;
organizing, and maintaining care of the self,
developing reciprocal social engagement, support -
peer friendships
giving & receiving, sharing with others,
displaying kindness, confidence, and hopefulness . .
as children and families heal,
we observe increases in empathy, insight,
cognitive flexibility, & compassion;
organizing, and maintaining care of the self,
developing reciprocal social engagement, support -
peer friendships
giving & receiving, sharing with others,
displaying kindness, confidence, and hopefulness . .
Dr. Marilee Marilee Ruebsamen, Ph.D. Lic. Clin. Psychologist CA LIC PSY 15068 CLINICAL & FORENSIC Child, Family, Trauma, Refugee Psychology, Asylum, Torture, Assessment, Treatment, TestimonyPsychological Assessment, Trauma Assessment, Veteran/NEXUS Assessment & Treatment; Street Child; Global Humanitarian founding director, abbey psychological services. abbeypsychservices.com founding executive director, always be listening global, 501 (c)(3) alwaysbelisteningglobal.com Psychological Assessment, Trauma Assessment, Refugee/Asylum Psychology. Clinical/Forensic Psychology; Reconnection Therapy Provider, US, Global Humanitarian GLOBAL Member; Professionals for Humanitarian Assistance & Protection, Geneva. Physicians for Human Rights; HealthRight International; Physicians for Human Rights. JED Foundation for Youth Suicide Prevention; Care for Calais, Human Health Aid Burundi, NEAR Humanitarian NETWORK- Sub Saharan Network. Support the Children South Sudan SUTCO, SAVE THE CHILDREN USA Founding Director, abbey psychological services www.abbeypsychservices.com Research and Treatment Themes Reconnection Therapy, Parents and Children *Nature/Effects High Unresolved Inter-parental Conflict *Pediatric Suicidality; Expendable Child, *Burdensomeness - its effect on suicidality . . . . *Performance based testing revealing child's Internal Representations *Effects of early adversity (ace's)(toxic stress) intermingled w/current Adversity mediated by both Protective (Buffering) Factors & Traumatic Stressors on Children The GOOD NEWS: *How Recent Research demonstrates that Relational Parenting, Connectedness is strong enough to counteract the effects of Adverce Childhood Experiences!! (Bruce Perry, MD) Founding Executive Director, always be listening global initiative,501(c)(3) (www.alwaysbelisteningglobal.com) refugee-asylum-torture, detainment of children: global human rights of children traveling children at borders, children of war/armed conflict, international humanitarian law pertaining to children and parents. Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection, Geneva, Member since 2015, HealthRight International, Doctors of the World, Physicians for Human Rights we prioritize
supporting crisis and street youth in the US through our Blue Canoe Division, established and maintained for US indigent children & street youth, victims of bullying, threat, gender-based harassment ... lost, couch-surfing, car sleeping, wandering, US homeless kids -- at risk injured, confused, pursued, ill or otherwise in some type of immediate danger . . . abandoned, threatened. . children of incarcerated parent(s) refugee & unaccompanied minor children, youth children with stark or unusual emergency, chronic, or life-limiting illnesses; pending medical treatment or surgeries, |
Dr. Jay James Livingston, Ph.D. Lic. Clin. Psychologist CA LIC PSY 5940 Adult/Child/Adol, Psychological Assessment Expert, Trauma, Refugee/Asylum/Torture Psychology; Global Humanitarian: always be listening global.com founding senior assessment psychologist, abbey psychological services. abbeypsychservices.com founding senior assessment psychologist, always be listening global, 501 (c)(3) alwaysbelisteningglobal.com Child, Adult, Teen, Family, Trauma; Psychological Assessment, Trauma Assessment, Refugee/Asylum Psychology, Clinical/Forensic; US and Global Humanitarian. FELLOW, SOCIETY FOR PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection, Geneva, Physicians for Human Rights HealthRight International | Doctors of the World US/Global:Pediatric Psychology: Current US Clinical/Forensic Specialty: Trauma, Refugee/Asylum Psychology: Nature, Effects. Assessment; Treatment Global Health/Mental Health; Assoc., member. Professor, p/t, former, PGSP/Palo Alto Univ. Center for Torture Survivors, San Jose, CA CSPP ALLIANT University Early Poly- Risk Factors (Toxic Stress, ACEs) intermingled w/current Adversity -- mediated by both Protective (Buffering) Factors & Traumatic Stress - can be overcome by strong and consistent relationship-centered parenting! both CLINICIANS are experienced refugee psychologists, familiar working w/interpreters, immigration attorneys, immigration court - each have 15 plus years experience as founding SF Bay Area asylum evaluators, treatment providers, successfully giving court testimony, supervisors, trainers, supervisors of student trainees. Interns, other psychologists, other MH clinicians California Psychological Association, Law schools) and conference speakers, through our work with the Center for Torture Survivors,vSJ, CA, since its inception. Providers, providing UN presentations on children's human rights and trainings on clinical issues, refugee and torture treatment, complex trauma, and human rights. |
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. . . we work with our patients, patient families, caregiving systems, our colleagues, supervisees, former students, and friends to promote safe spaces wherever they are - we promote rapid, affordable, safe immediate access to high quality, precision mental health services along routes of travel for children/youth and those who care for them. **in the US, we provide a comprehensive range of clinical/forensic services and advocacy activities, trauma-responsive, precision, evidence-based assessment, treatment sites, advocacy, collaboration with thoughtfully curated referrals/supports -- always supporting the unique child/parent relationship and the importance of the parents’ developing and maintaining a solid ”social cradle." pediatric despair and suicidality
the cognitive/mood/disruptive behavioral state young and older children sometimes find themselves in during crisis, or sometimes live with chronically when under duress over time - we are concerned with how to recognize, measure, and treat it effectively, as we now observe suicidal ideation, disturbed mood, disrupted behavior increasing at alarming rates in younger and younger children. and, always, we deal with the nature & effects of early adversity, poly-victimization intermingled with current severe stress - we work hard to understand the effects on children of being doubly stressed. healing, recovery and hope; resilience most consistently, we are treating a subset of youth who are found isolated, withdrawn, excluded, abandoned, who feel obliterated, bereaved children, etc. treating the youngest US children - is far less recognized and publicized, far less funded, than mental health treatment for adults . . . noticing these children are hurting is also less obvious, considered more challenging to therapists (as children may express themselves more symbolically than verbally, the clinician may worry that they must deal with parents or caregivers, knows there are continual, confounding developmental issues, that children are quite mobile, tend to disappear from treatment. To walk the rough road with a fractured US family, or part of a family,where,as an example, infants may have been born into early, pervasive, compromised configurations of "toxic stress" which damage the architecture of the developing brain - is serious, demanding business. It may well lead to discovering the manner in which that early adversity has been intermingled with ongoing "severe stress and trauma" along the way -- uncovering exposure to parental domestic violence, unremitting, unresolved "High interparental conflict",which has a deadly effect on a child's developing internal representations of Self, Other, Relationships, the wider World, and the Future. Right Here! Right Now! Child services at both Monterey and Saratoga offices, with compassion, mindfulness, and thoughtfulness . . . Dr. Marilee wishes to clarify the following Guidelines for offering no fee services to select children and youth - 1. all children - every child, deserve rapid, affordable,safe access to quality mental health services as needed, regardless of a family's ability to pay suggested fees.-- and all means all. all children. 2. we utilize a range of informed outside options so clients have choices. and then offer our services without fee, using respectfully co-created, low/fee no/fee agreements so that no children are ever turned away on the basis of financial insecurity. 3. we do our best to listen to, learn 'from and along with" parents and others who mean a great deal to each child. 4. our aspiration is to give "right here, right now!" support, provided the reason for presenting your child for treatment falls clearly within our expertise, mission, and the constraints of working in two cities. 5. where appropriate, we give thoughtful, carefully curated referrals, including the approximate waiting times the receiving provider quotes. 6. we do NOT believe in, nor maintain, "waiting lists" for children. kids live in the present. they often need immediate support and treatment. Instead, we will assist you to find an appropriate clinical referral. (and there may be times when we may we ask you as a parent, or you as a youth ready to start services to cooperate with triaging an urgent child case into the schedule ahead of your child. -- but that occurs rarely! 7. Because we face a grave and growing mental health crisis (which especially affects depressed children who may be trying to cope with suicidality (suicidal thoughts, and/or behaviors) in the US involving younger and younger children,we want to provide children, youth, and parents, teachers, and caregivers with BASIC EMERGENCY SUPPORT and CRISIS referral text and phone numbers (See CRISIS Section, Resources Section). Forcibly displaced, unaccompanied children and youth are fleeing for their lives at geopolitically unstable border regions in an attempt to find neutral, compassionate safe space- unfortunately, as more "Traveling Children' (per the UN) pour frantically into unknown pathways each month, injured, ill, starving, confused, and frightened, these routes have filled with every kind of exploitive organization - traffickers,recruiters of child soldiers, abductors for every conceivable motive, . and the desperate children - who likely do not understand any language but their own, fall prey to these individuals -many many kids disappear, never to be seen again . . see our amazing indigenous workers in twelve diverse locations at alwaysbelisteningglobal.com
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child psychological assessment, and precision, assessment-informed treatment The full range of Psychological Assessments and Treatments we conduct can be described both as "precision", per Obama, 2015, (research and/or evidence-based, and personalized) integrative (consistent with, integrated into children and family's "social cradle") -- consonant with their religio-cultural, linguistic identity, other aspects of their emerging personhood. clinical and forensic focus we continually study, collaborate, incorporate our research into our work, and train others on clinical, forensic, human rights and humanitarian issues. we assist colleagues, attorneys, judges, other personnel in family, juvenile, dependency, DV, immigration, probate, and mitigation Courts. we have significant, ongoing experience researching and applying our findings regarding the effects of parental violence and high unresolved ongoing conflict on the formation of internal representations of children of various ages and developmental stages -- what that looks like in terms of performance-based assessment and clinical work, and how best to treat it. PLEASE become familiar with the info at CRISIS and RESOURCES Tab info, and
Learn to distinguish between Emergency and CRISIS!! why is it important to get children emotional support quickly when they are noticeably hurting? 1. Research now shows that suicides are prevented more often when prevention resources are used earlier rather than later, that is, when a child or adult is aware they are hurting and distressed and feel the need for emotional support (rather than waiting until they feel "suicidal"). 2. Research also shows those who use prevention hotlines for emotional support when hurting tend not to take suicidal action. Thus, the message we are advised to give now is to assist your child, or advise your older child to "call when hurting and need support for your pain, - do NOT WAIT UNTIL ACTIVELY SUICIDAL!" 3. effects on children of explicit Interparental violence, and of perpetual/chronic UNRESOLVED High (verbal/emotional) Conflict between Parents Our research and clinical experience, and that of others, demonstrates: through Performance Testing and interview - highly distorted, depressed, at times angry, hopeless, internal representations of Self, Others, Relationships, the Wide World, and the Future that children repeatedly indicate they have absorbed - internalized - as their best understanding of their internal and the external world, -- given the unpredictable and dangerous interpersonal emotional climate in which they are being reared. We offer a range of other services for children and youth, such as Early Childhood Screening for Children potentially on the Autism Spectrum, consulting on IEP and 504 related issues, a range of Forensic services, including Court related services such as Child or Parent or Child/Parent THERAPY, CO-PARENTING, AND REUNIFICATION Services. Forensics, Second Opinion Review; Clinical Services; Attorney, Educational, Medical Consultation Example: as parents, grandparents, instructors, professors, and clinicians living in the SF Bay Area /Silicon Valley for many years, we've been incredibly fortunate to study, work, commiserate, and eat, worship, with friends, students, colleagues, neighbors, religious leaders, businessmen and women, artists and musicians from around the world. Over fifteen years ago, we were among the first cohort trained here in the nature and effects of torture, how to evaluate its traumatic effects in order to defend asylees in immigration court, and begin treating torture victims from numerous countries, working through interpreters trained in both cultural issues and the extremely sensitive issues surrounding hearing the stories of torture survivors. it would be accurate to say that this highly demanding specialized work became the most demanding, taxing, but also the most gratifying of our professional lives. we have always welcomed refugees/asylees to our practice. In some settings, we have trained interpreters from many countries available. In Monterey and Saratoga, we now have access to interpreters. Please notify us if you or a friend you refer require the services of an interpreter. As an ethical principle, we do not use family members as interpreters. |
what are refugee child trauma psychologists doing in the US & globally?
we are systematically listening to the children of perpetual high unresolved conflict, family dissolution, separation and divorce, and children and families who are war-affected refugees and relatives who we find here in the US.
migrating- immigrating individuals are often alone, isolated by language, or because all or most family members have been abducted, tortured; killed - or were found colluding with perpetrators in dysfunctional families or gangs, or may have simply disappeared, -- some have actively abandoned their children. The children's narratives are told in bits and pieces, occasionally, in coherent tales, in poems, songs and drawings, paintings, models made of clay- mediums that are all a part of symbolic expressive languages of children - though they often simply write and speak despite the chaos and horror they've experienced. The common thread is nearly always their desire to "TELL!" others what they have endured. In the case of refugees in the camps, and in crowded temporary living conditions here in the US, they very much want to tell the world how much they love their countries of origin, and explain that they will always "want to go HOME!"
migrating children, as well as the sometimes-victimized children referred to as from "broken" homes in the US, kids in single family homes post-divorce, or youth in foster care, some kids who have endured multiple out of home placements, children who live in what we refer to as "reconstituted families" - (*and we acknowledge that in many blended families child members eventually adjust well) - but referring here to the children new to blended families who either lack the interpersonal skills to find their way into the new family system, may simply be harassed, bullied, targeted by the other children or parents, parent-figures, until it is clear they are not welcomed - or for a host of other reasons and complicated dynamics, come to believe they have been "obliterated" from any meaningful family presence (though still physically present.) They come to believe they are Not Seen. No longer exist. They have become desolate, numb. And sometimes, they become suicidal. Kids tell us there is a delicate balance between feelings of Belongingness vs. feeling Burdensome, or Invisible.
a hallmark of many children in tremendous pain is their longing simply to be Seen, Listened to, Remembered, Touched, within their families.
And many, particularly the children of war and migration, children exposed to domestic violence, or unrelenting interparental conflict, and those who have seen or experienced torture, lost family members - those in refugee camps who have begun to realize that years living there will likely stretch on and on into dozens, children who no longer have living family members . . . those with little hope of returning to their homes - 1) want the Entire World to know the extent of their their pain, distress and suffering, and 2) but still really want to go to that "home" that on one hand they realize no longer exists, and still want the outside world to know that, despite knowing it is an unrealistic wish.
As clinicians, It becomes part of our complex job, among many other clinical validating clarifying, comforting and sustaining, assisting them with expressing thoughts and feelings, and of course being Consistently Present for wounded kids, -- it is on us to help them methodically, painstakingly, piece together their memories of Home, perhaps an idealized Home, and memories of those who loved them - assisting them to do so in great detail,
in order to have and hold that HOME, in completeness, internally "in their hearts" forever ("internalizing" "holding in Memory") to draw on as support for their identity and Personhood.
It is also our responsibility to help them put the energy of their tremendous Hope to use as they look forward, imagine their potential new lives, imagine "what lies ahead".
We have refined our expertise, spent decades with colleagues, doctoral students, young people/their parents, researching, teaching, supervising, collaborating with psychologists and those in other disciplines in the US and globally, developing and fine-tuning assessment protocols and treatment programs (for example, created school and community based grant-funded programs for at-risk kids to address the needs of as many children and youth as possible -- always using performance based psychological testing and brief, conversational need- and evidence-based interviewing to inform specific, personalized treatments: art, mindfulness, movement, for young children who are among the most recently and severely traumatized and endangered (at border regions to which they've fled.)
Globally, these youngsters are generally young, utterly vulnerable, poor, often injured and starving - often do not comprehend the languages spoken around them- find themselves in the world's most fertile preying ground for traffickers of every kind, predators, kidnappers, soldiers, outlaws, terrorist recruiters. Know that EVEN within the camps, there are terrorists and terrorist recruiters who prey upon and threaten the children and their parents - in fact, we are learning that the camps are potent locations for threatening refugee parents and cultivating child soldiers, threatening the kids not to participate in the UN child treatment programs because they want them toughened up for use as child soldiering - returning, for example, to Syria.
the UN calls them the world's "Traveling Children"
In the years we have worked with asylum-seeking, torture surviving families, we have allowed ourselves to be shattered and rebuilt along with the children and families on the run . . . in some way empathizing with them on a deep, unspoken, level, the truest, perhaps, only way to be of any possible use to the increasing numbers of these forcibly displaced youth. And in this way, we've come to identify with the painful conflicting experiences of children ravaged and torn by abandonment and family fracture, separation, divorce, abandonment with we have cultivated the very deepest respect for their raw courage, their willingness to trust us, Americans, their determination to find places of fairness between parents, and the individualized and group strengths they display. Hopeless mothers who see no end to their years in the camps, and are perhaps persuaded to offer their young girls as child brides as a sole, but deadly, option. Fathers whose lives are also threatened, if they continue to send their boys to the mandatory child therapy UN sponsored classes - they are told to pull their boys and toughen them up to join ISIS - so they will be required to join other child soldier recruits.
helpful definitions of terms regarding immigrants
Refugees
persecuted/tortured individuals have, by international law, the right to seek
asylum in any country (though if they enter illegally, it is harder to obtain and keep
asylum. In the US, at least until recently, once an individual has applied for asylum
they have a legal status in this country until their case is adjudicated -
should they lose their case, they will be deported.
refugees: individuals approved outside of the US to enter.
asylum status: can be sought after an individual enters the US, e.g., for business,
as a student, tourist, or illegally, etc. Once they have applied and been granted
asylum status, they have the same status as refugees.
resettlement; Both refugees and asylees are being resettled in the US, by definition.
We work extensively within the US with migrant children and families
(assessment, treatment, addressing loss and acculturation issues, post-migration,
resettlement issues, grief, psycho-spiritual reckoning -- grieving their very personal,
individual, immense losses, changes, health issues, and ongoing adjustment
issues (poverty in the US, loss of their "mother tongue"), etc.
traumatized US children we serve are similar but clearly different than the world's "Traveling Children"
In many ways less obviously traumatized than the world's migrating children, the
US-born children are, however, also children who can be much more deeply wounded
than they appear to be.
Some are children who are driving the US rates for completed pediatric suicides up . . .
some are children who are rarely brought to treatment unless they commit a serious crime,
or unless the family is impoverished, or there are extreme or multiple incidents of child abuse
or substance related crime . . . and depending on whether or not they become involved
with Social Services. Other than that, they may come to mental health attention
far too late, or not at all.
children, adolescents, teens, families; caring others
Adults and Families - Various types of Psychological Assessment & Treatment
Refugee/Asylum Psychology, Asylum Evaluations & Testimony
US and Global Children's Wellbeing: Refugee and Global Humanitarian Issues
Resettlement, Relocation, Child Detainment (is illegal worldwide)
Safe space, Safe Access, to Quality Mental Health Services and
quality education, attention to school adjustment, social issues, linkage to support, etc.
we continue to evaluate and treat torture survivors
(victims of political torture, gender based violence, etc.) & their children
through Center for Survivors of Torture (CST), San Jose, CA and through the nonprofit we founded,
always be listening global initiative (alwaysbelisteningglobal.com) at twelve country borders:
promoting the human rights of mothers & infants, children and families
around the world
we are longtime providers of REFUGEE/ASYLEE (asylum seeker) child/family mental health services,
particularly invested in promoting/supporting theInternational Rights of Forcibly Displaced Children/Youth,
unaccompanied minors who are flooding geopolitically unsafe Border Regions seeking shelter,
"traveling children", per the United Nations.
refugee/asylum psychology; asylum evaluations & testimony
we are active in global activities supporting the International Human Rights of the Child Global nature
and effects of Gender-Based Harassment and VIOLENCE, Child Refugees, and Child detainment (ILLEGAL!)
"how beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it!" * through abbey, we provide consistently competent, comprehensive, confidential, respectful precision psychological services. Emphasizing hopefulness, we maintain a compassionate & warm presence, reducing the sources of anxiety & suffering, promoting sources of hope, strength, joy! * we practice precision psychology "the right treatment for the right person at the right time." Obama, 2015 (expert research-informed & evidence-based, accurate, contextual and personalized Psychological Assessment and Case Conceptualization - Trauma Informed & Trauma Responsive Relationship-based, individualized treatment interventions. we conduct research and work effectively with many high-conflict, trauma-affected and interpersonally violence-exposed children & youth, Intervening effectively requires us to persistently research & consult with others who specialize in identifying & fostering children’s protective, buffering factors - factors - which in turn provide enhanced support and promote coping, resilience and hope in children and adults at critical life stages & unique contexts across the lifespan. The range and continuity of services we offer is designed to assist those we serve to perceive interpersonal interactions accurately, ensure and maintain emotional stability, learn how to obtain optimal level of care to support a continued healthy perspective and support wellbeing for children, adolescents & their families, we offer services for very young children within their caregiving units, and for transitioning individuals of any age, focused support for transitions known to be especially challenging, such as moving from secondary school to residential college environments. we work fastidiously with victims of crime, their families/support systems, with adults/older adults, with those who may have unacknowledged or previously unassessed cognitive disabilities. we provide many types of psychological assessment. Including psychological assessments & interventions, psycho-educational consult & assessments for school age and preschoolers, and conduct cognitive/functional evaluations for frail elderly 
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Integrative Treatment for Parents, Children, Youth, Adults;, Families learning to provide constancy, progressively engendering trust, & facilitating the development of discernment and understanding. Twig by twig. stone by stone, we help each other grow. gretchen schmelzer.com 2016 all rights reserved * we assist children, youth, with their families & caregivers, to address and work through conflicting thoughts, and feelings, challenging relationships, secret-keeping, negative alliances, and, sometimes, confusing, unhealthy, influences. * while every family is unique, & the pace of their change & growth is uniquely theirs. when they are well supported in therapy, the essence of their experiences becomes, in many ways. qualitatively similar. 
as parents, as therapists, helpers, friends of kids, we see ourselves building a nest in the hearts of children follow gretchen schmelzer.com, 2016 
"the active ingredient in
development in the life of a child is the quality of the relationship he has with adults in his life." Jack Shonkoff, M.D. 
it is immensely
rewarding to see families respond, begin to experience relief, repair and healing, locate positive, creative energy within themselves individually and as a family unit - *** become more deeply aware, learn to listen to what is occurring within themselves and their relationships more accurately, and come to parent more positively, less reactively, more bravely, reflectively - with genuine curiosity, insight, respect, and enjoyment - in response to timely, genuine interest, informed examples, modeling & support. 
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”all things . . .
bright and beautiful . . . 
all creatures - great . . .
truly great!!
and the greatest !!!!!
. . .and small . . .
(. . . . and even smaller. . . !)
all things wise . . . .
and wonderful!!!!
the Lord God made them all.”
continuing bonds & buffer
of attachment exist between people & loved ones who have died, between children & adults who have lost contact, between each of us & the creatures we love & lose -- just exactly as those bonds existed before contact was lost, or between people and those who have passed or with our animal relationships-- just as with relationships between spouses and other close family members. - when a loved one, a person or cherished animal, dies . . bonds of attachment and love between each other may be memorialized, celebrated, & internalized (taken in - made part of us, and brought forward in time) to be drawn on for comfort & support throughout our lives to degree the relationship was healthy, positive, comforting & supportive when the loved object was living, or when the relationship can be transformed after loss. |
abbey . . . . specializing
we are experienced serving bereaved children, youth, and adults, those experiencing the debilitating effects of exposure to extreme terror/danger, or who have complex/complicating developmental conditions, injury/medical, psychiatric conditions; life-limiting or disfiguring acute or chronic health or mental health conditions.
we work with educational system-involved complicated situations requiring second opinion, consult; and support, including treatment; we provide consultations and
children at risk subsequent to difficulty with inclusion in their family, or difficulties with inclusion into reconstituted
family general trauma psychology services, all ages, including for very young children & court-involved cases: review,
second opinion, consult, assessment, treatment , expert testimony.
special expertise & experience in trauma assessment & treatment, instruction at doctoral level,
treatment: very young children & adults effects of exposure to violence - nature, effects, assessment, treatment,
cultural/linguistic/gender issues.
high conflict- exposure to interpersonal, interparental families: nature, effects, assessment, treatment, coping and
hope, recovery. domestic violence: exposure to interpersonal, interparental families: nature, effects, assessment,
treatment, coping and hope, recovery. supporting researcher, and expert testimony
compassionate listening, grief support; credentialed, trained, and co-instructor for twelve years for
hospital chaplaincy training specific parent coaching, connectedness to like-minded professionals as each
situation suggests. we see a number of teens preparing for college, and early career professionals, often family constellations. we enjoy our work with older adults, families who bring frail elders in for assistance
with communicating and decision-making, children and adults with acute,
severe, and chronic stress and illness/disease -- and their families/caregivers.
immediate initial screening by phone, rapid intake attempting to offer next day appointments
for children in distress . . . & weekend appointments where needed, if we
possibly can, or strong referrals275.8260
court-involved situations:
we conduct consultations, forensic assessments, court-ordered individual, child, reunification,
re-connection therapy, and supervised therapies, co-parent counseling, therapeutic visitation,
and often Second Opinion reviews of psychological assessment
we consider every consultation, every connection, every encounter in therapy
a fresh opportunity for relatedness and connectedness and we take opportunities to work
with youth seriously. every referral is carefully curated.
while we practice "modern", research informed, state-of-the-art, evidence-based psychotherapies, we are warmly
relational, theoretically integrative, and flexible, grounded in both original attachment theory and modern attachment
theory, (Alan Schore) and clinical-developmental (psychodynamic) theories, and in the profound, ancient Wisdom traditions and the integrative models of treatment that derive from them, including, for example,
contemporary trauma theories and contemporary attachment, psychodynamic theory, mindfulness-
based theories.
at the core of our work, we offer presence, warmth, empathic atunement, positive regard, deep attention,
deep listening - within a healing space. while we integrate research-informed, evidence-based treatments,
and often usecognitive behavioral interventions, as experienced professors and clinicians,
we are actively conceptualizing as we work, drawing fluidly from a number of theoretical frameworks
as they are indicated clinically. For example, we may move to using pediatric/health psychology
interventions and work primarily from a stress and coping
perspective, using a specific stress-diathesis (stress-"vulnerability") model while treating the
bereaved partner of an individual who has died of a chronic, life-limiting illness, or in the treatment
of a highly ambivalent, suicidal adolescent.
we provide
expert, timely, coherent, 'precision' psychological assessments, a variety of personalized trauma,
psychodiagnostic,personality, trauma, and other types of evaluations and assessments.
Assessments may be primarily clinical, forensic, psychodiagnostic, psychoeducational, parent child relationship
focused. We conduct evaluations for Family Court, Juvenile Dependency Court, Mitigation Court and
Immigration/Asylum Court. As well, we are often asked to conduct Private Evaluations for Physicians,
Parenting Evaluations, IEPs, Placement, Work re-entry, etc. We provide Second Opinion reviews.
we consult to attorneys &
provide expert testimony & evaluations for the courts
Family, Juvenile Dependency, Mitigation, and Immigration/Asylum, and to individual judges, parents,
teachers, social workers, IEP and Student Study Teams (SST) teams, attorneys formally and informally,
agengies, nonprofits. work as expert witnesses, and render Second Opinion reviews for
children, youth and adults, attorneys,
another way of explaining what we do most often -
addressing specific referral questions across many domains, including cognitive, learning, emotional,
interpersonal, coping, issues, etc., and Second Opinion reviews.
we conduct child & adult clinical & psychodiagnostic assessments
psychological assessments directly tied to treatment recommendations
treatment of child and adult grief and loss, severe stress and coping, including treatment of
extreme trauma, victimization: children and youth,
nature, effects, assessment and treatment of exposure to high unresolved conflict
and interpersonal, inter parental violence
inter-parental violence, treatment of children, adults, families, affected others with chronic or
life-limiting illness, psychological support for invasive medical procedures, etc.,
high anxiety and post traumatic stress, pediatric mood disorders and suicidality,
disorienting and distorting attentional issues which contribute to anxiety and behavioral disorders.
we are active in multiple areas of asylum & immigration reform, & continuing our global work
in Refugee Psychology & humanitarian work for uprooted children
we conduct consultations and asylum evaluations for individuals of all ages, speak and consult
internationally on subjects such as refugee safety, shelter and Sanctuary, torture recovery offer
assistance for treatment Catholic Charities of San Jose
and Asian American for Community Involvement, Center for Survivors of Torture - with whom we've
been associated for several decades (Center for Survivors of Torture since its inception).
As well, we have developed our own global humanitarian nonprofit for war- armed conflict
affected children at geopolitically unstable borders (see alwaysbelisteningglobal.com).
we treat young unaccompanied minor children
now living in the US (referred to as "uprooted" "traveling children"
by the United Nations) pro bono
(unless, in the rarest of cases, they have access to funds or qualify for services by a provider
such as Victims of Crime, etc.) and further support them by collaborating with appropriate
human rights agencies through our global humanitarian project for forcibly displaced,
migrating children
at geopolitically unstable borders in ten countries. See our global project,
always be listening global initiative, an independent nonprofit in the US 501(c)(3).
(alwaysbelisteningglobal.com),
an example of our pro bono work: blue canoe
Dr. Ruebsamen has long provided assistance for what are now referred to by the UN as
"uprooted, traveling children" -- street youth, at high risk, without connected ness to family
or friends, endangered, sometimes ill, injured, targeted, harassed, threatened, frequently the victims
of gender-based violence,fleeing or still involved in trafficking . . . in the US,
these are generally youth who find their way to us from the streets by word of mouth
or through buddy referrals - who are, for a number of reasons, unable to locate help,
cannot transport themselves, cannot afford, or feel they cannot trust traditional available
social and medical services in the community.
Through connections to service providers and agencies we have made, and by donating
our services, we are able to engage these youth and quickly evaluate their immediate needs -
sometimes successfully assist
them with immediate concerns such as connections
for transportation, housing, food, and medical services, and, longer term,
help them sort out urgent needs from issues that can wait, call home
if appropriate, begin to be heard and identify areas of trauma,
move them on to appropriate, longer term compassionate professionals and agencies
equipped to address and ameliorate both their obvious further immediate
stabilization and long-term medical, residential, psychiatric, educational and
vocational needs. Currently, 1.8 million children and youth are estimated homeless
on the streets in the US though numbers are almost impossible to verify given
the many ways children learn to be invisible in their often eventually failed
attempts to remain anonymous and, they hope, remain safe to survive on the streets.