Adrienne Loker, LCSW 

(She/Her/Hers)
EMDRIA Certified Therapist
Somatic Experiencing Therapist

Adrienne Loker, LCSW is a national trauma therapy and addiction counseling expert and trainer in Richmond, VA. She was drawn to the helping field after embarking on her own healing journey following the traumatic chaos of addiction within her family. Fascinated by the human experience and how some individuals were able to overcome while others appeared to be overtaken, Adrienne relocated to Richmond, VA to pursue an undergraduate degree in Social Work (2009) from VA Commonwealth University (VCU).  Adrienne went on to obtain her graduate degree in Social Work (2012) from VCU. During this time, she interned at the first African American hospital in the Richmond area on the psychiatric unit. This enriching experience taught her much about transgenerational and racial trauma and the systems that the maintain the status quo. Adrienne finished her graduate training with a Juvenile Drug Court program in the Greater Richmond Area, working with whole families to gain recovery skills. 

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Since receiving her Master's Degree, Adrienne’s worked with a variety of populations across multiple mental health settings, each experience shaping her professional values and identity. While employed at Virginia’s only Forensic Psychiatric facility, she became discouraged by the rehabilitation efforts of the system, feeling that clients were warehoused over rehabilitated. Searching for an opportunity to be more effective with the individuals she served, she began working in a residential facility for youth overcoming trauma. It was here that she began her work directly treating attachment wounds and pre/non-verbal trauma. 

 

After becoming a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Adrienne moved on to support the Clinical Director of an outpatient substance abuse treatment center. She fell in love with the Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), finding it an opportunity to support individuals in connecting to their deeper selves through the emotional interconnectedness of the group setting. During this time, she began to embrace experiential modalities over cognitive interventions, as she witnessed the impact of individuals stepping out of the tendency to intellectualize their feelings and instead create space for the feelings they had previously been phobic of. Adrienne was soon approached by another agency to build an IOP of her own, allowing her to successfully create an experientially-based, neurobiologically informed program that more effectively incorporated the nervous system throughout the treatment process. In 2019, she parted ways to debut her own private practice. 

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Adrienne was trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in 2017 through the EMDR International Association. She has advanced training in this modality, to include working with dissociation, ego state interventions, early childhood trauma, generational trauma, group work, addiction cravings, attachment ruptures, couples therapy, and various acute and complex trauma protocols. In 2018, she added psychodrama to her experiential tool kit, and trains regularly with a local cohort. She is in her third year of the training process to become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and also has training in Brainspotting. Adrienne believes deeply in the use of experiential approaches that allow clients and families to experience the change process viscerally from the roots of suffering.