We frequently receive emails and phone calls asking if we “take Tricare?” To our staff clinicians, the question that is actually being asked is “Do you work with military personnel? Do you understand military life? Do you have any experience with our world of service to our country? Do you understand how much we have to cope with? Do you understand trauma?”

This short answer is : yes, we do.

We have consistently had military spouses on our clinical team of both active and retired military personnel. We frequently receive active duty referrals from Portsmouth Naval as well as from the clinics to assist in the active duty treatment overflow. Many of our military spouses enjoy working with military spouses and guiding and supporting their own individual journey through their active duty members career while in Hampton Roads. We understand how to assist the families endure deployments as well as duty station changes. Many on our team are trained in evidenced based treatments for trauma and PTSD from incidents that have occurred while on assignment, both sexual trauma as well as military trauma.

So the answer to your question is “Yes, we take Tricare!”

Acknowledging the May 31st anniversary of the mass shooting at Building 2 in Virginia Beach, we at Beach Therapy recognize and support our community in healing. Lisa C. Thomas, MS, ATR-P, Resident in Counseling at Beach Therapy & Consulting, is participating in the Healing VB: An Expressive Arts Project, offered by the Arts for Optimal Health Program at Eastern Virginia Medical School

https://www.evms.edu

and Virginia MOCA. This program was created in response to the mass shooting that occurred on May 31st 2019 at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. The program is offered on the last Monday of every month at the Virginia MOCA location starting at 6:00pm.

https://virginiamoca.org

In response to COVID-19, the Healing VB: An Expressive Arts Project in-person meet-ups been postponed. The project continues virtually using a HIPAA compliant BlueJeans platform hosted by Eastern Virginia Medical School. For the most up-to-date information on the status of this project, please follow the Graduate Art Therapy and Counseling Program at Eastern Virginia Medical School on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.