Women's Therapy Center, at 1315 Walnut Street, Suite 1517, recently received a $40,000 grant from the Barra Foundation to start an innovative project called New Beginnings, which will address the far-reaching consequences of trauma on women and will incorporate EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) treatment – an evidenced-based specific trauma therapy approach – as part of the project.

According to Alison Gerig, Executive Director of Women's Therapy Center, the program will be innovative and unique since it will be one of the first EMDR-based trauma mental health programs offered to women in a community-based setting. 

“This program is unprecedented for Women's Therapy Center and in the community mental health field” says Gerig.  “EMDR treatment is at the forefront of trauma therapy yet disenfranchised women rarely have access to it.”  

While cost-effective and life changing, community-based settings and hospitals usually do not offer EMDR to treat trauma and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Low income, uninsured and underinsured women often do not have the resources to seek out care in the private sector.  WTC’s mission is to provide access to high quality, low cost mental health care for women. 

“Women's Therapy Center is a natural setting to launch this New Beginnings initiative” says Gerig.  “We’re now able to offer a space for women to truly overcome the debilitating symptoms of trauma that often prevent them from thriving within their families and communities.”

Women's Therapy Center was started in 1972 by eight therapists seeking to challenge gender and class biases that existed in the mental health system at the time. Today it serves over 300 women a year by providing high quality, low cost individual, couples, and group psychotherapy to women in the Delaware Valley.  For more information, visit www.womenstherapycenter.org

The Barra Foundation is a private, not-for-profit philanthropic organization that primarily serves the five-county area of Greater Philadelphia. The Foundation's principal focus is to make one-time and multi-year grants for innovative projects that aid in advancing the frontiers of knowledge in the fields of arts and culture, education, health, and human services. The Foundation has placed itself at the forefront of innovation in the field of women's therapy.