About Me

Jim Helling, LICSW, CMPC (male pronouns) is a psychotherapist, educator, researcher, and mental performance consultant specializing in complex traumatization and adaptive resilience. He maintains a private psychotherapy and consultation practice specializing in psychological trauma, healthy embodiment, resilience and treatment of severe dissociative disorders. Jim was an embedded psychotherapist and performance consultant in the UMass, Amherst Department of Athletics from 2008-2019 and directed the Athletic Counseling Office (ACO) from 2011-2019. He is an AASP Certified Mental Performance Consultant, a Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute Approved Consultant, certified in EMDR & Clinical Hypnosis, and associates his work with the action psychology of Pierre Janet and the Theory of Structural Dissociation of Personality. In addition to his clinical and consultation work, Jim is a co-investigator and lead trainer with a multidisciplinary childhood adversity and resilience research team that develops and disseminates the nationally recognized Changing Minds, Changing Lives resilience training program. He also developed (e)Motion, an experiential mindfulness and movement program for self-regulation and self-care. Building on that model, he leads cultural somatics workshops to explore the embodiment of White identity and facilitate intersectional and inter-group dialogues. Jim is an instructor at UMass, Amherst, a faculty member in the Alliance of Social Workers in Sports Certificate Program and served as board president of Western Mass EMDRIA from 2014-2019, chairing the annual conference for 5 years. His publications and presentations focus on topics related to the social ecology of adaptive resilience responses, adaptive embodiment and peak performance, mental health disparities, adversity and equity in college mental health and athletic systems, college athletics reform, moral injury, and trauma-informed care. Prior to training as a trauma therapist, resilience educator, and sport social worker, he was an award-winning broadcast photojournalist, documentary cinematographer, producer, and director who covered US and international politics, global security & military affairs, investigations, and social issues.