Approach
I enjoy working with adults in individual and group therapy who are dealing with life transitions, grief and loss, family-of-origin concerns, relationship issues, trauma, and anxiety. I also have a special interest in fertility-related struggles, perinatal concerns, difficult or traumatic birth, and experiences of miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion, TFMR, and infant loss.
I draw from psychodynamic and attachment-based theories, as well as from my advanced training in trauma treatment (including EMDR) and modern analytic group therapy. I am naturally interested in how your past may be affecting your present, and I believe wholeheartedly in my clients’ ability to learn new ways of being and move forward in life. I have an active style of relating that is ultimately warm, thoughtful, and engaged.
As a therapist, I take seriously the need to pursue continuing education and engage in my own therapy work. Some of my areas of advanced training and speciality are:
Somatic- and Attachment-Focused EMDR Therapy (S.A.F.E. EMDR)
This remarkable therapy modality is an integrative, physiological psychotherapy approach to address trauma and various“stuck points” among other concerns.
I completed my EMDR training in 2015 under Deb Kennard, who both developed S.A.F.E. EMDR and trained under Francine Shapiro, EMDR’s original founder. I also pursued and completed additional advanced training with Deb in 2023.
It is inspiring to see clients benefit from this empirically-proven, brain-based therapy and often experience the long-desired relief that they once thought impossible. To read more about EMDR, click here.
Maternal Mental Health
I am passionate about supporting clients through fertility-related struggles, perinatal mood concerns, difficult or traumatic birth, and experiences of miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion, TFMR, and infant loss. I also work with NICU experiences and parents’ adjustment to children’s unexpected medical events or diagnoses.
I completed training for a Maternal Mental Health Professional Certificate with Postpartum Support International (PSI) in 2016, and I am a previous Birth Doula, trained in 2007 and certified through DONA International.
Each of the unique challenges that I help my clients to navigate in this arena are connected by a distinctive thread concerning the intersection of reproductive-body experiences and emotional experiences. I have always had a heartfelt interest in that important intersection and consider it a privilege to be invited into those spaces with my clients.
Group Therapy
Group therapy can often powerfully expand self-insight and lived change in ways that individual therapy alone may be limited to address. The “living laboratory” of group provides clients with an opportunity to more actively experience their challenges in real time and receive feedback about how they are perceived by others in addition to learning to use their own voice in more productive, relational ways. Group clients often describe their group participation as an accelerant to the work they do in individual therapy.
I am an original member of a training group for modern analytic group therapy that has met here in Nashville since 2011, and I also participate in an additional modern analytic training and psychotherapy group that meets weekly. I am proud to be a founding board member of the Nashville Group Psychotherapy Society (NGPS) which seeks to expand group therapy training and participation in group here in Nashville. To learn more about NGPS, click here.
Group availability: I co-lead a Thursday morning group (8:05-9:35 a.m.) with my spouse and colleague Zach Bryant (www.zachbryant.com.) [Update 10/09/25: This group is currently full and is not taking new members.] I am currently scheduling intakes for a new group which will likely meet over lunchtime on Wednesdays starting in winter or early spring 2026. There will be eight spots available. Please send me an email (ruthbryant@gmail.com) or give me a call (615-975-2438) if you are interested or would like more information.