Liz Zhang

My name is Jing Zhang; you can simply call me Liz. I’m originally from China. I lived in California for a couple of years before moving to Ann Arbor in 2015 to attend the University of Michigan. Prior to that, I had a career in business. It was a family member’s struggle with mental illness that introduced me to the mental health world. At first, I was on the receiving end of services. Inspired by the helpers I met along the way, I decided to pursue two master’s degrees in Social Work and Health Service Administration, and ultimately a 180° career turn to become a clinical social worker. Between 2018 and 2021, I provided trauma therapy and case management to the most vulnerable youth and families within Washtenaw County through Community Mental Health. In 2021, I joined The Safe Calm Place and transitioned to private practice. I believe effective therapy is relational, so I strive to bring my authentic self into the therapeutic relationship. The nerdy part of me has always been fascinated by the latest developments in neuroscience and the intricate connections between our physical bodies and our emotional well-being. I’m trained in DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and other therapy models. Yet, when I completed the S.A.F.E. EMDR (Safety and Attachment Focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) basic training and personally experienced EMDR as a client in 2019, I knew this was the clinical approach I wanted to hone. Because it worked magic in freeing me from early childhood attachment wounds. After the basic training, my personal transformation hasn't stopped. I continued to learn and develop as an EMDR clinician while diving deep into cutting-edge Polyvagal Theory-Informed Interventions. I’m an EMDRIA-certified EMDR therapist and Approved Consultant; I’m also a certified provider for the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) and the Rest and Store Protocol (RRP). All the clinical interventions I picked up along the way help me continue to deepen my own healing and unleash the potential I didn't know I had, leading to the development of a new integrative theory – Polyvagal-Informed Adaptive Information (PIAIP) Theory - and to a more effective evolution of the EMDR protocol. I named it EMDR 3.0. PIAIP holds that our life experiences can only be fully processed and integrated when we feel safe and are well-resourced. Whenever we are forced into a survival mode, our processing capacity is overwhelmed, and then pieces of information are left unprocessed in their raw form, stuffed into time capsules. These unprocessed memory fragments then become the reference database for our nervous system to detect potential threats in the future. Any cue that resembles this reference will immediately trigger the same survival state and strategy as during the original event, leading to false alarms, overreactions, or underreactions again and again. EMDR 3.0 uses the Vividness Scale to target and process the unprocessed raw material to completion—freeing us from the “hamster wheel.” EMDR 3.0 is more targeted, efficient, reliable, and thorough than the standard EMDR protocol. I’m devoting more and more time to introducing PIAIP and EMDR 3.0 to other clinicians through my own business: Safety as the Essence of Healing LLC. My career in social work grew alongside my experience as a mother. From my personal and professional experience, I believe that challenges in parenting are really opportunities for us to become better versions of ourselves. My eight-year-old daughter, my cat, my dog, and all my clients taught me just as much as all my professional trainings did. At The Safe Calm Place, I look forward to working with you and your family to uncover the root causes of whatever presenting issues have brought you here and to heal from the bottom up.