Brainz Magazine Exclusive Interview
Dr. Denisa Millette, PhD is a practicing Psychologist and a Professor of Counseling Psychology with over 23 years of clinical experience. Her specialties are trauma, anxiety disorders, and women’s health. She was recently awarded the Distinguished Professional Service Award for leadership in international trauma counseling development. Dr. Millette is a founder of the DM Coaching platform designed to support women across the globe in creating a life worth living in the aftermath of difficult life experiences. Originally, from the Czech Republic, Dr. Millette currently resides and practices in the United States and Canada.
You are currently a practicing psychologist. How do you feel about your work in this field, and what initially led you to pursue a career in psychology?
My interest in psychology grew when I was still in high school in my home country, the Czech Republic. My high school had a medical specialty, and I was fascinated learning about the intricacies of the human mind in my first 101 Psychology class. This interest led me to pursue a Master´s Degree in Psychology. While in college, I developed a passion for neuropsychology, forensic psychology, and psychotherapy. Upon graduating, I had an amazing opportunity to practice psychotherapy in private practices and treatment centers in the Czech Republic, England, and the United States. I later returned to school to pursue my PhD in psychology with specific interests in neuropsychology and trauma. As of today, I have been actively engaged in the field for over 23 years. It has been such a fascinating journey for me; I got to learn from my mentors and figure out my niche, and now I’m able to teach and train others.
I feel very blessed to practice what I love. Many people ask me why I specialize in trauma and how I deal with being exposed to so much human suffering and pain. My work is at times very demanding and challenging, requiring much self-awareness and reflection; however, it is also incredibly rewarding to help my clients turn things around one step at a time and restore hope where there is little left. I have had the privilege to witness much healing, restoration, recovery, rise in resilience, and posttraumatic growth in clients with the most adverse and traumatic life events. I love to learn, and I am always advancing my skill set to meet individual clients where they are and tailor their care to their unique needs. As an educator to rising therapists, I encourage my students and supervisees to do the same.
Do you have any other professional responsibilities?
Yes. I am a psychology professor at Yorkville University, Canada. I teach master´s degree students counseling skills, trauma and crisis intervention, and clinical assessments. I am a certified clinical supervisor, training and overseeing therapists and other clinicians pursuing their licensure in the United States. I am also currently serving as a Chair of the Professional Development Committee of the International Association for Trauma Counseling and Resilience, a division of the American Counseling Association.
Can you share your journey from being a psychotherapist to starting your international coaching business, DM Coaching?
Being in private practice, I felt significantly limited in how many clients I could reach and personally assist in a one-on-one therapy setting. Even when I started group therapy, I had to limit my groups to 10 women to ensure high service quality and care. Using a digital coaching platform, I can now share affordable resources with my coaching clients regardless of where in the world or life they may be. A high-quality, trauma-focused therapy can be very expensive and out of reach for many women. DMcoaching does not offer therapy; however, it offers resources based on empowering psychoeducation, effective strategies, free webinars, and most importantly, membership in a community of other women. We all share in human pain and suffering, but no one needs to walk alone.
How do you see the disciplines of psychotherapy and coaching complementing each other?
Psychotherapy is a therapeutic intervention that aims to treat mental health issues and disorders. When you work with me in therapy, we may explore your past and present experiences to help you process trauma. As a psychotherapist, I typically include some clinical assessment to diagnose and treat mental illnesses and create an appropriate treatment plan. I do not currently accept insurance, but I can provide a superbill for insurance reimbursement to my therapy clients.
In coaching, on the other hand, the focus is more action-oriented and tends to be more on personal growth through learning, goal setting, and achievement. DMCoaching provides support and guidance to our clients to help them improve their current situation. Coaching, however, does not treat mental illnesses and provide any clinical psychological services, such as diagnostic testing, and should not replace psychotherapy.
Many clients take advantage of incorporating therapy and coaching. When combined, therapy can help individuals deal with the underlying issues that may be hindering their progress, while coaching can provide the tools and motivation to move forward and achieve their goals.
How has your background and experience as a psychotherapist influenced your approach to coaching?
Working with so many different people over the years, I learned the power of psychoeducation–in both therapy and coaching. I love giving people tools and I find that they are much more likely to implement them if they know what happens in the brain and body as a result. For example, I use specific breathing techniques to help my clients regulate their overactive nervous systems. If I give someone a handout and tell them to go and breathe a certain way every day, most will not do it. On the other hand, when I teach people about physiological changes in a trauma-compromised brain and what happens when we activate the vagus nerve through diaphragmic breathing, I find that they actually do it! The best testimony of my success is a client coming back and saying, “I got triggered, but I noticed the sensations in my body, and I did my breathing, and it worked! I was able to walk away and calm myself.”
Another important piece of knowledge for me is that we cannot achieve healing without honoring the mind-body connection. In both therapy and coaching, I teach people trauma-informed, body-based practices before working with cognition. In therapy, I will engage a client in a grounding meditation before going into trauma processing of specific events. In coaching, I will teach a masterclass on grounding techniques and meditation that my clients can watch and learn at their own pace. I will later offer a live Q&A – anyone can come and ask me questions to help them integrate new practices in their self-care.
What specific services and programs will DM Coaching offer, and who is your target audience?
The mission of DM Coaching is to support all women in building and cultivating a life worth living, especially for those women whose lives have been disrupted or limited by the impact of difficult or traumatic life experiences. May it be the loss of a loved one, physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive relationships, divorce, medical traumas and accidents, challenging life transitions, or even adult consequences of childhood trauma. We all respond to these life events differently, based on many factors, including our genetic predisposition, brain chemistry, and level of resiliency. However, regardless of these factors, adverse life events tend to create psychological, emotional, and physiological wounds for all of us. I find that most of my clients struggle with setting boundaries and maintaining healthy relationships as partners, parents, friends, or colleagues often due to fear, low self-worth, or trust issues. Most have difficulty understanding and regulating their heightened emotions or experiencing emotional numbness. Feeling anxious, on edge, or disconnected most of the time disrupts their lives and creates chronic stress, ultimately resulting in sleep issues, chronic pain, difficulties with memory, focus, and attention, fatigue, and many other issues.
As an educator and advocate for women’s mental health, I use the DM Coaching platform to reach women across the world to educate them and provide them with affordable resources on healing the wounds of trauma, taking care of their minds and bodies, restoring balance, cultivating healthy relationships, and building lives worth living. My coaching clients have access to four different services:
Her Journey Membership which includes our inner circle community forum of amazing women, monthly masterclasses and live Q&A´s with me, a member’s library of resources compiled by me, email newsletters, and discounts on self-paced courses and events! This membership is available to all women in all places around the globe.
One-on-one coaching with me– these are 60-minute personal coaching sessions with me to provide tailored guidance and support to individual clients based on their needs.
Free monthly webinars to serve the community and promote mental wellness by providing psychoeducation and increasing awareness of a wide range of mental health topics.
Self-paced online courses–I am currently developing practical, self-help courses on a variety of women’s health topics, often per members’ common requests. If seeking psychotherapy or clinical psychological services, clients can work with me in my private practice, the Safe Emotions Counseling Center at www.denisamillette.com. At this time, full therapeutic services are available only to clients in Georgia, USA due to licensing restrictions.
What are the core principles or philosophies that guide your coaching methodology at DM Coaching?
My approach is deeply embedded in the integration of an evidence-based neuroscientific approach with healing mind-body practices as well as effective techniques drawn from modalities supported by current research as well as my years of clinical experience. Trauma experience is often deeply embedded in the body, so healing and recovery must be addressed through body awareness. Unresolved traumatic experiences are often trapped in the body which may continue to react to them even though they may be long past. A trauma survivor may be perpetually on high alert and overly vigilant, or shut down and disconnect from self, others, and the world. The mind-body practices taught allow the clients to experience a sense of integrity, intimacy, and connection with their bodies and ultimately become balanced and grounded, restoring harmony and coherence of the body and the mind.
These practices are used to build the foundation of safety, to learn how to calm and ground oneself, as well and to foster and cultivate self-compassion and an increased sense of aliveness, joy, and presence. Mind-body treatments usually include intervention strategies that are thought to promote health, such as relaxation, visual imagery, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, cognitive-behavioral therapies, and group support. Somatic awareness and mindfulness are key components of mind-body interactions.
Healing is a slow process and a brave journey for most. It requires consistency, persistence, and courage. It requires the choice of growing pains as opposed to the pain of where many are right now. There may be setbacks and hard days when nothing seems to be working. But these days eventually show up further and further apart and lose intensity. The most important message and advice I want to give to all women is: Believe you are capable of healing and thriving. Become curious about who you are. Leave room for your best life yet. Start a new chapter. You are worth it.
What are your long-term goals for DM Coaching?
I would like to reach out and invite all women to go on this journey with me and all the other courageous women in our virtual community. My hope is to grow a strong community of women who support one another and gain strength from knowing they are not alone. Eventually, I would love to host live retreats around the world to provide even more resources and connections in person.
What do you think makes people happy and satisfied in their job and life?
Great question. Based on research, there are six factors that strongly correlate with one’s sense of subjective well-being and life satisfaction. Now, happiness is tricky, as happiness comes and goes based on what is happening to us in our immediate experiences. But if we talk about a sense of well-being, the factors are physical health, social support, self-esteem, healthy thoughts and an ability to be in the present moment, coping skills, and a sense of purpose. Out of these six, I would say that one’s sense of purpose is the strongest correlator to well-being. To know that I am aiming for something and that I matter is really a very universal human need.
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Honestly, there is not much of it! But when I have it, I love to hang out with my family and friends, practice yoga, go on long walks, read books, cook French cuisine with Julia Child, and learn ballroom dancing.
Last but not least, if you could share one valuable piece of advice or insight with our readers today, what would it be?
My biggest advice to anyone would be to learn healthy emotion processing. Most of us tend to suppress or repress negative emotions, may it be anger, anxiety, or sadness. We do not want to feel these emotions so when we recognize their presence, we tend to soothe and distract ourselves with alcohol, food, sex, drugs, work, and so on. Unfortunately, these suppressed emotions don’t go anywhere. They stay with you, inside you. Kind of dormant, until something happens, and it all comes out. You finally blew off the steam but damaged your relationships with others. Learn to understand that there are no bad emotions other than shame. All emotions are signals letting you know something is not right, and you need to pay attention. Emotions are physiological responses of your brain so if you want to change how you feel, you must first recognize, acknowledge, and accept the emotion –“I am feeling anxious, and it is okay to feel this way.” It does not feel good, but stay with your emotions for a bit, and allow yourself to feel them.
And then start moving, open your arms to open your chest, and breathe. MOVE! To change your emotional state, you must change your physiology first. Exercise and change your body temperature (yes, you can take a cold shower or hold ice cubes in your hands). Talk to someone about your feelings, journal, process, and analyze your thoughts. Only when fully processed can you proceed to soothing with healthy coping mechanisms – favorite music, a movie, a piece of chocolate, a trip to the spa, your favorite park, or a bookstore. Don’t suppress your emotions – keep them, listen to them, sit with them. Research shows that over time, emotion suppression results in physical and mental health issues. Know there is a better way! Come and learn with me at DMcoaching.life!
