Brain Injury Clinical Expertise
Brain Injury and Mental Health
A brain injury does not simply affect memory, attention, or physical functioning. For many survivors, it can affect identity, relationships, employment, emotional regulation, confidence, independence, and their understanding of who they are after the injury.
Jamie provides counseling for individuals experiencing psychological and emotional challenges associated with:
Traumatic brain injury and concussion
Acquired brain injury
Stroke and other neurological conditions
Brain injury-related trauma
Anxiety and depression following injury
Adjustment to disability
Grief and loss following neurological injury
Changes in identity and independence
Relationship and family difficulties
Emotional regulation difficulties
Anger and frustration
Reduced confidence and self-esteem
Social isolation
Vocational and employment-related challenges
Caregiver and family stress
Life transitions following rehabilitation
A central component of Jamie's approach is recognizing the interaction between neurological changes and psychological experiences. What may initially appear to be anxiety, avoidance, irritability, low motivation, or interpersonal difficulty can sometimes be influenced by cognitive fatigue, executive functioning challenges, impaired processing, changes in self-awareness, sensory issues, or the emotional consequences of neurological injury.
Understanding that distinction matters.
Jamie Arber, MA, LPC, CBIS-T, CAGCS, brings more than 15 years of professional experience working within the brain injury and disability field, with a particular focus on acquired brain injury (ABI), traumatic brain injury (TBI), community-based rehabilitation, disability-associated trauma, and the psychological challenges that can accompany life after brain injury.
As a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Brain Injury Specialist Trainer, Jamie combines clinical mental health treatment with extensive real-world experience supporting individuals with brain injuries and other neurological and cognitive disabilities. His clinical perspective is informed by years of leadership in community-based brain injury rehabilitation and by his work helping individuals and families navigate the emotional, cognitive, relational, vocational, and practical consequences of brain injury.
This combination of clinical training and specialized brain injury experience allows Neurospark Counseling to offer a different type of therapeutic support: care that recognizes that trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, relationship difficulties, identity changes, and emotional regulation challenges can look different when someone is also living with the effects of a brain injury.
More Than a Decade of Brain Injury Expertise
Jamie entered the brain injury rehabilitation field in 2010 and has spent his professional career developing, leading, and supporting community-based programs for individuals with acquired and traumatic brain injuries.
Since 2017, he has served as Executive Director of The Supported Living Group, a Connecticut organization providing community-based ABI, TBI, autism, and disability support services. His work has included the development and oversight of brain injury rehabilitation programs, supported living services, vocational programming, community integration services, and individualized supports designed to promote independence and quality of life.
His professional experience has included collaboration with rehabilitation hospitals, state agencies, case management organizations, clinicians, families, caregivers, and individuals living with brain injury. This multidisciplinary experience provides Jamie with a practical understanding of what happens after formal rehabilitation ends and a person begins navigating the much more complicated process of rebuilding life within the community.
Trauma-Informed Brain Injury Counseling
Jamie specializes in the intersection of brain injury and trauma.
Some individuals sustain their brain injury through inherently traumatic experiences such as motor vehicle crashes, assaults, falls, violence, sports injuries, or other serious accidents. Others experience trauma after the injury as they encounter loss of independence, changes in employment, relationship disruption, altered identity, financial stress, or repeated experiences of being misunderstood by others.
For some survivors, the brain injury itself becomes only one part of a much larger trauma experience.
Jamie incorporates trauma-informed principles into counseling while adapting treatment to the individual's cognitive and neurological needs. His clinical training includes EMDR, trauma-focused approaches, Ericksonian hypnosis, and other therapeutic strategies that may be incorporated when clinically appropriate.
Treatment is individualized rather than assuming that every brain injury survivor should receive the same intervention.
EMDR and Brain Injury
Jamie is trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and has experience adapting trauma-focused clinical interventions to individuals with neurological and cognitive differences.
Brain injury can create unique considerations when providing trauma treatment. Some survivors experience difficulty with visualization, working memory, concentration, sequencing, emotional regulation, or recalling events in a traditional narrative format. Others may experience fatigue or become overwhelmed by prolonged cognitive processing.
Clinical work therefore may require thoughtful modification of pacing, language, bilateral stimulation strategies, cognitive interweaves, grounding techniques, and other components of trauma treatment.
Jamie approaches EMDR and trauma treatment collaboratively, considering the individual's cognitive profile, communication style, neurological history, and ability to tolerate emotional processing.
Understanding the Person Beyond the Injury
One of the most important principles in Jamie's work is that a person is not their brain injury.
Brain injury survivors are frequently described primarily in terms of deficits, limitations, behaviors, or support needs. While understanding functional challenges is important, effective counseling also requires understanding the person's identity, strengths, relationships, interests, values, goals, and sense of purpose.
Jamie uses a person-centered and strengths-based approach that seeks to help clients understand what has changed while also identifying what remains possible.
Clinical goals may include rebuilding confidence, developing compensatory strategies, improving emotional regulation, processing traumatic experiences, strengthening relationships, returning to meaningful employment, increasing independence, or developing a renewed sense of identity.
Brain Injury, Autism, and Neurodivergence
Jamie also has extensive professional experience working with autistic and neurodivergent individuals and understands that brain injury and neurodevelopmental differences can sometimes overlap in ways that complicate clinical presentation.
For individuals living with both neurological injury and neurodivergence, treatment may require careful consideration of executive functioning, sensory processing, communication style, emotional regulation, social cognition, and environmental demands.
Rather than viewing these differences exclusively as deficits, Jamie works collaboratively with clients to identify practical strategies that improve functioning while respecting individual identity and autonomy.
A Clinical Perspective Informed by Lived Experience
Jamie is also a survivor of traumatic brain injury.
In 2000, he sustained a significant head injury following an assault while returning to the United Kingdom from university in the United States. He was hospitalized in the UK and experienced a complicated period of recovery before ultimately returning to the United States.
His lived experience does not replace clinical training or professional expertise. Instead, it provides an additional perspective on the uncertainty, frustration, identity changes, and practical challenges that can accompany brain injury recovery.
That perspective has remained an important part of Jamie's commitment to improving how individuals with brain injuries are understood and supported.
Clinical and Professional Experience
Jamie holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Community Psychology. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Connecticut and a Certified Brain Injury Specialist Trainer (CBIS-T).
His professional certifications and clinical training include:
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)
Certified Brain Injury Specialist Trainer (CBIS-T)
Certified Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS)
EMDR training
Ericksonian hypnosis and related clinical approaches
Trauma-informed counseling
Person-centered and strengths-based therapy
His career has included executive leadership, brain injury rehabilitation program development, disability services, vocational programming, community integration, clinical consultation, and direct counseling.
Counseling for Life After Brain Injury
Recovery from brain injury does not necessarily end when someone leaves the hospital or completes formal rehabilitation.
For many individuals, the more complicated work begins afterward: returning to work, rebuilding relationships, understanding changes in identity, managing emotions, adapting to cognitive changes, navigating disability, and creating a meaningful life within a changed set of circumstances.
Neurospark Counseling provides a space where those experiences can be explored without reducing the individual to a diagnosis or disability.
Whether someone is adjusting to a recent injury, living with a longstanding brain injury, processing trauma associated with an injury, struggling with changes in identity or relationships, or trying to understand how neurological differences are affecting their mental health, counseling can provide an opportunity to make sense of those experiences and identify a path forward.
Specialized Brain Injury Counseling in Connecticut
Jamie Arber provides specialized counseling for adults and adolescents experiencing traumatic brain injury, acquired brain injury, disability-associated trauma, adjustment difficulties, grief, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, and related mental health concerns.
His clinical approach brings together brain injury expertise, trauma-informed counseling, EMDR training, disability experience, neurodiversity-informed practice, and lived experience as a brain injury survivor.
For individuals and families looking for a Connecticut brain injury therapist who understands both the neurological and psychological dimensions of life after brain injury, Neurospark Counseling offers an experienced, individualized, and person-centered approach.