Meet Rebecca Kase

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Kase.

Rebecca, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am from St. Louis, MO and have lived in Denver for over 15 years. I am a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist, professional clinical trainer and yoga instructor. My great grandfather was a psychiatrist and rumor has it was pen pals with Freud.

I grew up in his old house with all of his psychiatry books and journals around, when psychiatry was really weird, and so feel that some of my therapist nature is in my blood through my great grandfather was not the picture of a warm fuzzy therapist at all. I went to undergrad in MO, getting a BA in psychology, and when I took my first psychology class, I had this moment where things just clicked for me. This science made sense to me and I had an implicit sense that this was what I was supposed to do, help others.

I moved to Denver in 2005 to pursue my Masters in Social Work at DU. During my graduate program, I specialized in the treatment of trauma through a specialized certificate program and internships, including an internship in Bosnia Herzegovina. I became drawn to treating trauma for a few reasons. One, we all have it. No one gets through this lifetime without some bad things happening at some point. Second, healing from trauma and adversarial experiences has such capacity to illuminate the power of the human spirit. How amazing that we can go through horrific experiences and come out more resilient, adaptive and self-actualized on the other side. I wanted to support people along that journey.

Now as most therapists, we usually have some personal meaning tied up in our work. I have healed my own traumas and done my own work. It’s been really dark at times and scary and lonely, but as I figured out how to walk in the dark so to speak, I felt compelled to help others find their way through the darkness as well. I would say from my own personal healing journey I do not feel afraid to walk in the dark, and so I feel I have an obligation to help others in doing so.

I got trained in an evidence-based trauma therapy known as EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in 2007. This is an incredibly powerful and internationally recognized treatment approach to working with trauma. It can seem like magic and I was mesmerized by the outcomes clients were having. EMDR has the power to deeply heal our wounds and experiences that continue to haunt us. I have never seen any therapy to have such profound effects. Clients finish EMDR and really are healed, no longer struggling with symptoms or traits that have had them stuck for years.

I continued to practice EMDR and advance my skill set in this area, and at the same time, began teaching. I taught at DU in the Graduate School of Social Work for a number of years as an adjunct professor. I also started providing professional training at my places of work. I eventually went on to become an EMDR trainer myself and began a professional training business focused on trauma-related training. I provide EMDR training in my business, along with training on advanced clinical topics, vicarious trauma, and trauma-informed care.

And let me not forget about yoga. I went to my first yoga class when I was 15 and got hooked. I have been practicing since then and yoga, I would say, has saved my life. Yoga has been the most powerful, steadfast, consistent practice I can always turn to to help me through rough times. Through depression, anxiety, very dark thoughts, hugely traumatic experiences, and the death of my father, it was yoga that I always turned to and that was always there and brought relief, hope and healing. People think of yoga as putting yourself into a pretzel or sweating through hot yoga classes. That’s the westernized version of yoga. Yoga is “a journey of the self, through the self, to the self” (Bhagavad Gita). It is about deep inner exploration and healing through techniques such as physical poses and pretzel like postures :), breath, meditation, mantra or chanting, working with your energies, and study. If you do yoga, your life will suck less. I guarantee this.

So as I continued my own practice of yoga, it just became part of who I am, how I think, how I see the world, how I understand suffering. I have been integrating yoga practices into my therapy practice for years and now integrate it into all of my professional training.

Yoga and trauma theory has so many overlaps. There are so many concepts in trauma theory that are essentially yogic at their core, but not recognized as so. My business is unique in that my work is a union of the science of psychology and trauma theory, blended with yoga therapy and practices. I am a very east and west practitioner and teacher. If you come to my training, you will get lots of yoga-inspired regulation skills not only to learn in use with clients but to support your own learning.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The creation of my training business, which really launched back in 2017, I would say, has been a pretty smooth road, which I feel very fortunate and blessed for. But I don’t feel this is just because I lucked out or got a pass from the universe.  Rather, it’s because of some really bumpy and rocky parts of road I’ve traveled down. I did a lot of work to get to where I am and learned some hard lessons, professionally and personally along the way. 

As I indicated before, I have dealt with my own significant traumatic experiences, along with depression, anxiety and PTSD. There have been some very hard times. However, as I reflect on those times, I view them now as not only human but also as times of study. Where I learned so many tools and methods, frames of reference and lessons that are essentially “here are some ways to walk through the dark”.  At this time in my life, I don’t really view the hard times as just “hard” but as lessons and opportunities to grow. You don’t grow as a spiritual being by staying comfortable. I had some hugely traumatic things happen within the last 5 years, and although it was some of the greatest pain I have ever experienced I was also able to keep the perspective that it was perhaps one of the most profound times for me to learn and grow.  Because not growing was more painful than growing.

In Buddhism and Yoga Philosophy, we talk about the concept of dharma. Dharma is your soul’s purpose. It’s not specifically your job or what you do with your day, though it can be. But it’s why you’re here. Part of a bird’s dharma for example is to sing. Part of a predator’s dharma is to eat prey. Part of a tree’s dharma is to take in sunlight and grow. I believe we all have dharma to heal ourselves in this lifetime, as everyone has wounds to heal. Whether or not you fulfill or rise to the calling of your dharma is a whole other thing. I have shown up to my healing and will continue to do so as I know, there will be more experiences to heal from in my lifetime. So that is part of my dharma, to heal myself. But I feel very clear that another aspect of my dharma is to help others learn how to heal themselves, and learn to help others along that healing path.

Because I feel I’ve done some big work on myself and have found my soul’s purpose, when I launched my training business in 2017, things went and have gone pretty smoothly. There will be bumps and hang-ups and failures for sure. But the yogic lesson here is that when we align with our dharma and show up to it, it doesn’t feel so much like you’re swimming upstream or fighting against the current. You feel… aligned.  And maybe you see the rough patches as the most important part of the process.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
My business focuses on training other therapists and professional, on issues related to trauma healing and trauma therapy.  Myself and my amazing training faculty offer a number of trainings including EMDR Basic Trainings, Advanced EMDR Trainings, Vicarious Trauma & Trauma Informed Care Training, along with yoga workshops and specialty topic trainings.  All of our trainings are focused on supporting professionals learn to offer amazing support to those who are struggling with unresolved trauma. Some of these trainings are only available to psychotherapists, however a number of trainings are available to anyone working with the suffering of others.  This may include responders, caseworkers, energy workers, medical professionals, nursing home staff, health aides, etc. These training are also beneficial for foster and adoptive parents.  

What is unique to my training business, is I really focus on creating a special environment for learning to happen through. So often we go to training, especially trauma training, and we are lectured all day about heavy topics. Trauma trainings always refer to the importance of regulation as a key to healing ad learning, yet as we teach people these fundamentals of trauma work, we don’t parallel that message in our training style and environment. This has never made any sense to me and feels like a real disconnect in the field. In my specialized training environments, we incorporate various exercises and props to facilitate learning through not only an intellectual experience but also a felt sense experience.  We deeply value connecting to our participants and creating nurturing learning spaces. I believe that we can’t just talk the talk of how to walk in the dark, we must walk the walk. Anyone can regurgitate book knowledge to you, whether it’s stimulating or not. But what’s special and unique about my business is I don’t only teach you through power points and slides but through experience.

I also deeply value the importance of healers doing the work themselves. Healer, heal thyself! We can only support the healing others as deeply as we have healed our own wounds. In our own healing process, we have such capacity to not only learn the tools of “how do you navigate the dark?” but to have confidence and hope that navigating the dark is possible. If we ourselves haven’t done our own work that can certainly impact our work with clients and can leave us feeling self-confident or unsure of whether healing is possible.  We must be courageous in our lives and with our clients. Healing takes courage, and faith. The way you learn to be courageous and the way you develop faith, is by showing up to your own dark spaces and finding a way to turn on a light.  

Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all did our work!?  I can. That’s what drives me and that’s what my business is all about.  Getting a little closer to that world.

What were you like growing up?
I grew up on 120 acres of forest in MO. I grew up playing in the trees and the woods, looking for fairies and animals. My dad used to tell us that on the solstices, you could find fairies and we’d go out into the woods looking for them. We even had a tree we named the fairy tree. I was an extrovert as a kid and my grandmother always said I could befriend a tree stump. Which I love trees and yes I befriend trees all the time 🙂

My mom describes me as being very worried about other people’s feelings and that I wanted to take care for others. I was very affectionate and very loving. My mom also says I was very focused on fairness and was quick to speak up when I felt things weren’t fair. I’ve always been a bit “woo woo” or spiritual even as a child, finding wonder and peace in nature.

Contact Info:

• Address: 300 E Hampden Ave, Suite 400
  Englewood CO 80113
• Website: rebeccakase.com
• Phone: 720-739-0639
• Email: rebecca@rebeccakase.com

Image Credit:
Kylie Fitz photography

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