Farah VanGenderen
LCSWC
Farah VanGenderen, LCSW-C, is a Maryland-based trauma therapist, somatic educator, lucid dream facilitator, and founder of ReConnections Therapeutic Services and The ReWoven Path™. With nearly 30 years of clinical experience, Farah’s work bridges trauma therapy, nervous system regulation, somatic practice, dreamwork, EMDR, parts work, and restorative practices for clinicians and clients alike.
Farah’s clinical background includes extensive work in child maltreatment, adoption, foster care, grief, complex trauma, and post-traumatic growth. She is trained in EMDR, Somatic EMDR, Trauma-Focused CBT, attachment-based therapy, parts work, lucid dreaming for psychological healing, Yoga Nidra/NSDR-informed practices, and somatic exercise. Her work is rooted in the belief that healing is not simply cognitive insight, but a lived, embodied process of reconnecting with the body, the self, and the wisdom that often gets buried under survival.
Through ReConnections and The ReWoven Path™, Farah teaches clinicians and healing professionals how to recognize the ways stress, trauma, grief, burnout, and systemic strain live in the body—and how small, accessible practices can support regulation, presence, sleep, dream integration, and sustainable care. Her teaching style is warm, practical, trauma-informed, and deeply human, blending clinical grounding with compassion, humor, and the occasional loving challenge to stop overriding the body like it is merely inconvenient paperwork.
Farah is especially passionate about supporting therapists and space-holders in remembering that they are not just providers of healing techniques; they are embodied nervous systems entering relationship. Her work invites clinicians to return to their own bodies, deepen ethical presence, and reclaim restoration as part of the work—not a reward after the work is done.
The Dreamer Keeps the Score: Sleep, Nightmares, and Trauma-Informed Dreamwork for Clinicians
Sleep is often treated as a wellness bonus, but for trauma survivors and overwhelmed clinicians, the night can become another site of activation. Nightmares, fragmented sleep, false awakenings, and fear of rest can reveal how the nervous system continues processing threat long after the day is over. This presentation introduces trauma-informed approaches to sleep and dreamwork, including nightmare reframing, dream rescripting, lucid dreaming concepts, and somatic grounding for nighttime distress.
Participants will explore how dreams can be understood not as random noise, but as meaningful material that may reflect stress, grief, survival patterns, and the body’s attempts to integrate experience. Clinicians will leave with practical tools to support clients—and themselves—in approaching nightmares with curiosity, safety, and agency.