When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.
Bianka Hardin
I (she/her) am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and owner of Centered Therapy Chicago, PLLC. I started CTC in 2014 with the mission to help children, adolescents, and adults improve their mental health and quality of life. I have been a trauma therapist for almost 25 years and am actively involved in my continuous learning and growth in this area from a personal and professional lens. I am very interested in cultural, systemic, and intergenerational factors that impact our health and well-being.
I love being a therapist. I specialize in working with trauma survivors and those in the healing professions. It is rewarding for me to support my clients who are also in the mental health field. Being a therapist is hard, and we can all benefit from getting additional support for the important work we are doing. It’s not uncommon for mental health professionals to struggle with vicarious trauma or burnout, especially with how difficult things are in our world.
I also really love supervision, consultation, teaching, and training, and I offer consultation to therapists who are interested in receiving case consultation, supervision, or additional support in their professional development. l fell in love with teaching and mentoring in graduate school and started adjunct teaching right after I graduated.
My teaching career includes the Chicago School of Professional Psychology as a Full-time and Part-Time Professor as well as the former Associate Department Chair. I started supervising clinicians in training in the early 2000s when I was the Assistant Director and Director at the Village of Hoffman Estates Department of Health and Human Services, and I have also supervised Doctoral Level Interns at Pillars. I have built CTC with an emphasis on learning, growth and development, and I am involved in training at CTC both in our training program and at the CTC Training Center. I present and consult on issues related to trauma, child abuse prevention, self-care, mindfulness, and trauma stewardship.
Education and Credentials
- Miami University, BA
- The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCS), MA and PsyD
- The Chicago School Adjunct Professor
- NARM Training Institute, NARM Master Therapist
- NARM Training Assistant (Level 1, 2, and 3)
- NARM Experiential Consult Provider
- NARM Leadership Team
- Somatic Experiencing International, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
- SE Training Assistant (Beginning and Intermediate, SE Session Provider Beginning)
What specific modalities do you practice and are you certified?
I am a relational, traumainformed, body-oriented therapist which means that I utilize both the therapeutic relationship and the wisdom of the body in the healing process. I have advanced training in relational and body-oriented psychotherapy.
I am a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. “Somatic Experiencing (SE) was developed by Peter Levine and is a is a body-oriented therapeutic model for healing trauma and other stress disorders. SE is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics. SE releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.” Check out the SE website for more information.
I am also a NARM Master Therapist.
“The NeuroAffective Relational Model(NARM) is an advanced clinical training for mental health professionals who work with complex trauma. NARM is a cutting-edge model for addressing attachment, relational and developmental trauma, by working with the attachment patterns that cause life-long psychobiological symptoms and interpersonal difficulties. These early, unconscious patterns of disconnection deeply affect our identity, emotions, physiology, behavior, and relationships. Learning how to work simultaneously with these diverse elements is a radical shift that has profound clinical implications for healing complex trauma. NARM emerged out of earlier psychotherapeutic orientations including Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Attachment Theory, Cognitive Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing®, and bridges traditional psychotherapy with body-mind approaches within a context of relational practice. NARM is a mindfulness-based clinical treatment, as its method is grounded in a phenomenological approach to addressing identity and consciousness of self – who we truly are beneath these patterned ways of relating to ourselves and the world.”
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman
What do you like to do when you are not working? What do you do for fun?
I enjoy novelty, traveling, and learning about culture and history. I love trying out new things and checking out new places. I moved a lot growing up because my father was in the military, so I think it’s fun to be meet people from all over the world and learn about their lived experiences and their culture. This love of learning is linked to my love of historical fiction and biopics. I am hooked by peoples’ stories and am in awe of their strength and resilience.
Since the pandemic, I have incorporated more time moving and being in nature as a part of my self-care and fun. I started kayaking and just love it. I also love walking and biking and enjoy mindful walking in nature in every season and appreciate watching the seasonal changes in nature. Another new hobby I have recently developed is gardening. Tending to my garden and flowers and nurturing growth is so restorative and relaxing.
What are you excited about? What is your passion? What do you want to learn more about?
I have a lot of energy and get excited about so many things. I love learning and connecting with others in a meaningful way. I have experienced personal and professional transformation and healing through my experiences in the Somatic Experiencing and NARM learning and training communities. I am passionate about personal and collective healing and believe that this happens in the context of relationships with others. We have experienced so much pain in our history, and it feels good to be part of something bigger than myself that is healing for the world.
I have been interested in intergenerational trauma long before I knew the term. During my graduate career, I started studying multiculturalism, the impact and history of racism, and racial identity models. I felt drawn to understanding our country’s history and wondered how that impacted my personal and professional development. I was born in Germany and am part-German. After graduate school, I started thinking about both my German and American heritage and wondered how what preceded me has impacted me and my identity. This curiosity led to the development of a course that I co-teach called “Intergenerational Legacies of Trauma in Post-World War 2 Germany” as well as my internalized messaging and my socialization as a cis-het white woman in the U.S. What I have come to understand is that I continuously have more to unpack when it comes to my socialization. I am excited to learn more about and continue to understand these intergenerational issues and learn more about how I/we can use the lessons of the past to heal and make important changes in the world.
One last thing I am excited about is supporting therapists in their work. I am passionate about therapist self-care, clinical and consultative supervision, and supporting therapists as they build their practices. I enjoy teaching and mentoring and look forward to doing more of this in the future.
What do you like about being a therapist?
I enjoy supporting clients in understanding what they want for themselves and what gets in the way of their deepest yearnings for themselves. I enjoy seeing clients make connections, facilitate changes in their lives, and step into their aliveness. I see the work as being impactful not just for the individual I work with but also for the ripple effects that lead to relational and collective change in the present and future.
Media Appearances
- NARM Training Podcast
- Candice Wu Podcast
- Experiential: Settling and Connection with NARM — EP68A (right click & save) Please join Bianka for a NARM (Neuro-Affective Relational Model) exercise that is focused on connection and can facilitate a deep sense of settling.
- Mental Health Business Mentor – Sep 13, 2021 Work/Life Balance: Finding the balance that is right for YOU
- The Conscious-Preneur – May 9, 2021 Five Supportive Practices for Every Woman
