Licensed Professional Counselor Laura Whisman isn’t inclined to take the easy road. To anything.
In a meandering route (embarked upon later in life) to what is a demanding profession by any standard, she works with the toughest of the tough: Clients whose mental health issues are based in substantial trauma. Which has led her to work with a very specific clientele of first responders that include police, fire and EMS professionals, as well as current and veteran military personnel dealing with traumatic stress injuries.
But Whisman sees her intense profession not as a burden but a privilege.
“First responder clients are obviously pretty tough, or they wouldn’t be in that job in the first place,” she said. “But to see someone who’s really struggling over a critical incident, or a series of critical incidents, and watch them experience freedom from that weight is pretty freaking amazing.”
How did you first become interested in counseling?
I was working in Dallas as the volunteer and community education coordinator years ago at The Family Place, a domestic violence agency, and I was surrounded by counselors. I already had a Master of Public Affairs from UT-Dallas but didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. The counselors were literally saving people’s lives and it was so inspiring to me what they were doing. I was always driven to do something that felt like it mattered, and it was like, ‘This matters.’ So, I went back to school to get a master’s degree in counseling at UNT.
So then what?
I went to work as a counselor at Origins Recovery Center, a residential substance abuse treatment center on South Padre Island. I had been married to someone with a severe drug addiction and had seen first-hand the devastation that addiction causes in families. So, I had really personal reasons to be interested in substance abuse counseling.
Origins was actually the treatment center that [my former husband] went through while we were married, and it was the closest he ever came to real sobriety during our relationship. I’d stayed in touch with [Origins’] family program counselor over the years, and I was getting burned out in school counseling. She encouraged me to throw my name in the hat for a position opening and within a few days I had a job offer.
How long did you stay at Origins and what came afterwards?
I was at Origins for about a year-and-a-half. My daughter had gotten married and lived in north Texas. About the time she became pregnant, I was being recruited to be clinical director of Clear Springs Ranch, an inpatient treatment center in Aquilla that doesn’t exist anymore. That move would mean I’d be two hours from family instead of 10, and that’s what brought me to Waco.
But I was on call 24/7 with the new job and was completely burned out after a year-and-a-half, so I decided to go into private practice.
I started out doing some marriage counseling and decided real quick that wasn’t for me. Not my skill set! Because I’d been doing trauma work in residential facilities, I had developed a passion for helping people work through trauma — so many people suffering with substance addictions have a history of trauma. That quickly became my focus in private practice.
Tell me what trauma means in the context of counseling.
Trauma is anything that overwhelms our normal coping systems and becomes lodged in our nervous systems. It could be childhood trauma, in the form of physical or mental abuse, neglect or sexual abuse. It could be exposure to issues like poverty, war or domestic violence. Certain career fields experience or witness frequent traumatic incidents: military, law enforcement, firefighters and EMS personnel. Not only are first responders in situations that pose a risk to their own safety, but they’re also constantly exposed to vicarious trauma — they show up on everyone’s worst day.
How did you come to focus on counseling first responders and veterans?
It was kind of an accident. When I first went into private practice, I was invited to the Waco PD for a presentation by an organization called Safe Call Now [a nationwide crisis referral service for public safety and emergency services personnel]. They were creating a list of local therapists who would be willing to work with police officers, especially looking for those trained in EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing], which I was. Origins had all of us counselors get trained in it.
What is EMDR and how is it used in counseling?
EMDR is a protocol-driven trauma treatment that uses bilateral stimulation, or BLS, to keep the parts of the brain engaged that you need to actually process and resolve a traumatic experience.
Let me explain that in lay terms [opening a page to “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk]. Look at this illustration of a brain and its functioning parts: The darker the area, the more active the brain is. The stuff that’s white is completely offline, not doing anything.
Someone having a PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] flashback has their alarm center lit up. But the segment of the brain that orients us to past, present and future goes offline, which is why with PTSD it feels like you’re back in the middle of the traumatic incident. Every time there’s a reminder of the incident, the part that integrates sensory information also checks out. If the parts of the brain you need to successfully process a traumatic incident check out every time you’re reminded of the incident, it never gets processed successfully to be resolved. In fact, it can actually get worse over time.
There is still discussion in the scientific world as to how EMDR actually helps to resolve trauma. At Waco PD, it’s known as ‘voodoo BS that works.’
So you moved into working with the Waco PD … just like that?
Well, in the earlier years, the [Waco PD] peer support coordinator really had to make a pitch when she was trying to get someone to call me for counseling. She’d say, ‘It’s not what you think. You’re gonna walk in there and she’s gonna be wearing ripped-up jeans and Converse tennis shoes, she’s all tatted up and she swears a lot.’
It’s not as hard of a sell anymore because I’ve been a member of the Waco PD Peer Support Team since 2018 and they’re used to seeing me around now. I’m also very grateful that many first responders are speaking up to talk positively about their experiences in counseling and encouraging others to try it.
A few months after the Safe Call Now meeting I attended, a Waco PD officer got my name off that list and came in, and it was a good fit. He went back to their peer support coordinator with a stack of my business cards. She called me the next day, sent me another officer, and it just blew up from there. I’ve counseled about 150 Waco first responder clients in the last six-and-a-half years, mostly law enforcement, but also in fire, EMS and from the active-duty military and veteran population. Often first responders and veterans overlap.
What does mental health support look like within a police department?
Chief Victorian is very supportive of efforts to boost officer wellness. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for a department of that size, especially with the variety of positions, which include patrol officers, detectives, crime scene professionals, victim services, dispatchers and more. The stressors are all very different and may need a variety of approaches. Chief Victorian is very committed to the ongoing development of programs that effectively support the wellness of her team.
You’re obviously passionate about counseling first responders and veterans. What about it resonates with you?
There are definitely personal ties, one being that I never met my dad, who was a Marine killed in Vietnam. He deployed when my mom was eight months pregnant with me and was killed when I was 4 months old. I never met him, and she never remarried, so there was no dad in my life. I’ve always had a huge respect for the sacrifices that veterans and first responders make. My daughter is also a firefighter/paramedic with Carrollton Fire and Rescue. She heads up their Peer Support Team and I couldn’t be more proud! So, I’ve got some skin in the game.
There seems to be a hesitancy for those in first-response professions to seek help. Why is that?
Traditionally it was expected that first responders just suck it up and power on, like that’s what they signed up for. But statistics tell us that police and firefighters are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty. There’s just so much cumulative trauma. That reality is forcing a culture change, and some agencies are further along than others. Waco PD is really trying to erase the stigma around mental health issues and prioritize officer wellness. They’ve had an active Peer Support Team for about 13 years, and I’ve been the mental health professional on that team for the last six-plus.
Do you do other counseling work in the community?
In 2023 I began volunteering to provide mental health support to a group of veterans, law enforcement professionals and OSINT [Open-Source Information Technology] analysts working for a national counter-sex-trafficking nonprofit called Skull Games. They work with law enforcement agencies around the country to identify and interdict sexual predators, and to empower communities to protect the vulnerable. Interdict refers to interrupting traffickers and is part of their slogan: Identify. Interdict. Empower.
OSINT professionals work in law enforcement, military intelligence, government and some corporations — for Skull Games, they volunteer time to use their open-source investigative skills to identify likely traffickers and their victims. A detailed, replicatable ‘path of discovery’ is then turned over to local law enforcement to act on. Since January 2024, their work has resulted in the arrest of 91 predators.
You use some other out-of-the-box protocols for treating trauma. Can you elaborate?
I hold a certification in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy from the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and have a partnership with Journey Clinical to offer ketamine-assisted therapy. I’ve witnessed some absolutely phenomenal results with clients suffering from PTSD and C-PTSD using this groundbreaking therapy. C-PTSD is complex post-traumatic stress disorder and is typically seen in individuals who have experienced chronic trauma, such as prolonged child abuse or domestic violence. I’m also certified in Meditation and Psychotherapy from the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy; Critical Incident Stress Debriefing from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation; and trained in EMDR.
What are the legitimate applications of ketamine?
Veterinarians use ketamine for sedating horses and to my understanding it got on the streets because it was easier to steal from a vet clinic than a hospital. Ketamine is used legitimately in medical and controlled therapy situations. In ambulances, if someone is combative or thrashing around, it’s a safe drug that can immediately calm the patient down. In ketamine-assisted psychotherapy [KAP] we use a dissociative dose, not a sedation dose. I’ve seen clients with severe scores of anxiety, depression and PTSD reach full resolution with KAP.
When can ketamine therapy be more helpful than EMDR?
EMDR is phenomenal with single-incident traumas. When someone has been in emergency services for years and has worked a laundry list of disturbing scenes, there may be an overwhelming number to think about targeting individually. They could be suffering from cumulative career stress. Where EMDR targets individual experiences, ketamine seems to paint with broader strokes. One way it does this is by boosting neuroplasticity in the brain.
Define neuroplasticity, please.
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change and adapt throughout life. The human brain has billions of neurons that form connections by ‘firing’ together. I’m certainly not a neuroscientist, but the best way I can explain it is that every exposure to something new — be it a thought, behavior or new piece of information — creates a neural connection. Every time you repeat a thought or behavior, you strengthen a neural connection. The more you repeat a behavior or thought, the stronger that connection gets.
That’s fine if habitual ways of thinking are life-giving, but what if they’re not? Part of what ketamine does is provide a massive boost of neuroplasticity that can speed up the formation of healthier neural pathways. There is an intention-setting aspect to KAP where clients spend time thinking about what they’d like to get out of the session, holding that intention in their minds as the medicine begins to take effect.
Your psychedelic therapy training also includes using other medications, right?
Ketamine is the only psychedelic medication that’s legal to offer therapeutically in Texas, but I’m also trained in using psilocybin [psychedelic mushrooms], and MDMA [Ecstasy]. I’m in the process of becoming licensed in Colorado as a therapist and natural medicine facilitator, which would allow me to host psilocybin retreats there.
Let me pause to say that I am not, nor have I ever been, a recreational drug user! In fact, with my background working in addiction, I was actually horrified to start seeing articles on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelic medications. But I’ve since found that the positive impact these substances are having on PTSD and other mental health struggles is no less than miraculous.
Part of my training included two experiential psilocybin practicums in Oregon which were life-altering for me. Since my father was killed in Vietnam when I was 4 months old and I grew up with a total absence of male role models, I’ve always known that some of my personal struggles were related to that. But I didn’t have a clear picture what needed to be healed or how to do that. Psilocybin did that and more.
No matter what substance you’re using to enhance therapy, it’s not just ‘Take this medicine and see what happens.’ It’s all wrapped up in a therapeutic process of intention-setting — as in ‘What are you hoping to heal? What can this help you better understand?’ — and integration, deepening and strengthening new ways of thinking and being.
Your work sounds pretty stressful. What do you do for self-care?
I’ve had a daily mindful meditation practice for over 10 years. I eat very clean. And I guard my sleep — I’m very, very mindful about going to bed on time, because I can’t do my job if I’m sleep-deprived. I’ve recently started weightlifting and I love it! I do the Y’s EGYM program — everything is pre-programmed for your height and weight, and you log in and do your circuit. I chose the muscle-building program and it’s phenomenal.
Does your work ever follow you home?
I’d be lying if I said never, but what I do take home isn’t typically the heavy stuff. I’m very fortunate to be trained in effective trauma protocols, so that no matter how much someone might be struggling when they first walk into my office, I feel pretty confident that I can help. It’s such a rush to witness their mental weight being lifted.
There may be first responders or veterans out there who are burdened by their traumatic experiences but hesitant to try counseling. What do you say to them?
First responders are fantastic compartmentalizers; they have to be. But there’s only so much space in that trauma compartment before it eventually fills up and stuff comes out sideways.
I tell clients all the time that it doesn’t matter how tough or well-trained you are, you still have the same brain and nervous system as the rest of us. Constant exposure to everyone’s worst day takes a toll, but there are some really effective protocols for reducing that load. My therapy work isn’t a formal, stuffy process. I’m just a regular person with tattoos and ripped jeans who learned some stuff that can help offload some of the things that weigh you down.
