April Aspgren

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Your story is not over until it is over. And nothing in your story is ever wasted. Your scars may very well become your stars.

April Aspgren, MA, ThM, LPC

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Who may I help?

First, I work with adult men and women who are struggling with unresolved trauma or adverse events that have produced trauma-like effects.

For example:

  • Abuse (physical, verbal, emotional or sexual)

  • Rape

  • Abandonment

  • Neglect

  • Accidents

  • Natural disasters

  • Death, grief or loss

Adverse events may occur during childhood or adulthood and may be a one-time event or a series of events. Sometimes unresolved trauma and adverse events produce panic attacks, anxiety, depression or PTSD. Quite often, clients who are struggling with unresolved trauma and adverse events may develop methods of negatively coping or numbing, such as substance use disorders or pornography addictions, and they want to stop. Those clients may have a greater chance of success if they treat and resolve the trauma or adverse event, which reduces their need to negatively cope or numb.

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Second, I work with professionals who experience vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue from regularly working in close proximity to traumatic events or with traumatized people.

Some examples include:

  • Emergency response work (police, firefighters, paramedics, investigators, military)

  • Healthcare work (doctors, nurses, counselors, long-term care providers)

  • Criminal judicial work (prosecution and defense attorneys, judges, probation officers, child protective services, jury members)

  • Caregivers for loved ones with dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s

What may this look like? After years of successfully dealing with the work, you feel as if something has changed or something is off. There is something you have seen or heard that keeps replaying in your mind or popping into your thoughts, which is unwanted and intrusive. You find yourself thinking about it at home or during your off-time. You may find yourself dreaming about it or having nightmares.

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Third, I work with some clients who desire ongoing addiction recovery support, as they reengage in real life in the real world with all of its stressors. These clients have already completed detox and treatment at a residential recovery center program for substance use disorders and follow-on treatment at an intensive outpatient program.   

Next steps… Healing is possible, but you will never know unless you take a risk and try. At this point, what do you have to lose?

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Aspgren Counseling & Therapy, PLLC is a Veteran-Owned Business contracted by Redemptive Hope.