Faces Of New Bedford #92: Heather Brito

Meet Heather Brito, 38-year-old Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Sand Play Practitioner and owner of HSW Counseling.

Growing up, people always thought she was happy go luck and on the outside she had it all, doing great in school and sports through college. But a series of bad decisions that had lasting effects on a lot of people, made her come to the realization that she wasn’t who she wanted to be and started a journey of that discovery.

Hearing that Sandplay therapy, a form of therapy that, like other expressive forms of therapy, allow the individual to tap into their unconscious in order to work our your light and dark, bringing them into balance. She traveled to Vermont, because there weren’t any local therapists, one weekend a month for two years.

Because of her success with this therapy, she wanted to bring it to others in the area, due to the large amounts of brokenness in the SouthCoast. She finished her Master’s degree and got her license to become a Mental Health Counselor in 2012, to help her open HSW Counseling. Almost a year after opening, she has been able to help those in the area through sandplay therapy, EMDR, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Art, and Massage Therapy. She is even holding her first retreat, Awaken 2017, where she is hoping, along with the other presenters, to bring healing and more healthy lives to the attendees.

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self acceptance.” Renee Brown

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Faces of New Bedford is a project by Colton Simmons. If you are interested in booking a shoot or getting prints from the series email all inquiries to colton@coltonsimmons.com

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