About – Tonya Ridings, LCSW

CLIENTELE:
I have extensive experience with individuals, couples, and families and enjoy working with adolescents and others on the cusp of new behavior and understanding. I specialize in trauma treatment and in helping people work through life transitions.

EXPERIENCE:
I have been providing psychotherapy since 1991 and have been in private practice since 2011. My first job out of graduate school was administering a Family Literacy program in Richmond for the Junior League. This program was a combined GED program for parents and an early childhood program for their children. We also provided high quality child care for the community.

I then worked for several years at CHIP of Richmond as their mental health therapist. Next, I served as the Executive Director of the Coconino Coalition for Children & Youth in Flagstaff, Arizona. Returning to Virginia, I was an emergency services worker for Valley CSB. Then I found Charlottesville League of Therapists and stayed there for 10 years as Lead Therapist and Supervisor. During that time, I helped open the League office in Lynchburg.

I have been in private practice since 2011. I am affiliated with Riverbend Integrative Trauma Treatment (RITT) as a supervisor and trainer. I offer consultation to other professional, particularly concerning somatic psychotherapy and trauma work. I love my clients and my work. I am very grateful to have had all of these experiences.

MODALITIES:
In 2001, I began training in the form of hypnotherapy called NLP and I am now a Master Clinician in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. This is where I first learned to do parts work which is so helpful for healing the young and/or disconnected parts of one’s self. EMDR grew out of NLP.

I have completed two years of Somatic Experiencing training. I have also completed the local training in vagus nerve work, offered by Janet Evergreen. This work has changed my practice because it is so profoundly useful. It is helpful to release trauma and upset from the skin, fascia, kidney, and brainstem as well as other physical and energetic structures in the body. In addition, I have been trained in and use Structural Family Therapy (10 years at CLT!) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

In 2020 I completed a two-year study program on Pre- and Perinatal Developmental Trauma Treatment by Myrna Martin, This class was taught by Janet Evergreen and Zakira Beasley. This allows me to help clients make attachment repairs from preconception throughout the life cycle.

PERSONAL BIAS:
Bringing your spiritual strengths and questions into your therapeutic experience creates a strong container for your session work and ensures that you are working through issues from a place of wholeness and divine support.

I believe that everyone has everything they need inside them at all times, so psychotherapy becomes a matter of being able to access your resources and your Golden Core of Health. This usually involves getting “unstuck” and moving things out of the way, so your natural resources are readily available.

I also believe that everyone deserves a good wholesome loving experience of psychotherapy and continue to do my own work on my personal biases and assumptions. I am learning and growing all the time.

CLINICAL SUPERVISION & CONSULTATION:
I have supervised 20+ new clinicians (LCSW and LPC) through their hours for licensure and I’m very interested in helping new therapists learn different treatment modalities and grow into their own unique expression of being a professional and a clinician. Realizing that this is a path of continual learning and growth, I also offer consultation to our community of clinicians.

Issues Treated