Provider Spotlight: Kris Fant, LMHC, LPC

As a counselor, Kris treasures the moments she spends with people rebuilding a meaningful life after a significant injury or heartbreaking event.  Specializing in Pain and Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation, Kris supports people as they learn to accept their new life while finding ways to live whole heatedly and authentically.  Kris utilizes a variety of modalities to facilitate this process, including mindfulness, expressive art, writing, movement, as well as Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Acceptance Commitment Therapy.  Kris applies these modalities with individuals, couples, and with groups.  When she is not at Progressive Rehabilitation Associates, you'll find Kris deep in the woods riding her off road motorcycle far from civilization.

One of Kris’s passions is using movement to facilitate healing for clients in our Comprehensive Multidisciplinary Pain Program.  While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps people reframe problematic thoughts and challenge core beliefs about pain, movement helps clients access non-verbal emotions associated with their injury that are contributing to fear of movement and impeding full recovery.  Using trauma-informed movement (https://www.traumasensitiveyoga.com/), clients experience the physiological symptoms of activating their sympathetic nervous system. The natural response to movement is increased heartrate and shortness of breath, which mimic a stress response, however when this stress response is engaged in the context of the therapeutic relationship and grounded in coping skills, the associated fear of movement that diminishes.  In this practice, clients learn how to set boundaries and listen to their body, and with this newfound influence over their physiological state, their fear related pain often diminishes.

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