Heart Solutions Counseling, PLLC 469-589-4793
Professional Bio

Patricia Callahan is an expert in heart solutions. She is known for helping people replace fear and hopelessness with peace and confidence.​ Patricia was born and raised in San Diego, California, and has been immersed in the field of mental and physical well-being since 1996. She has worked with people living with HIV and AIDS, people impacted by cancer, and in addition to her private counseling practice, she currently provides social and emotional support for Medicare patients and hospital employees at a major Dallas Hospital.​ Patricia Callahan is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker based in Texas. She received her Masters of Science in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin and has been practicing for over 15 years. She is also a member of the National Association of Social Workers.​​​​
My Story
My passion for Science
I remember so strongly that when I was in 5th grade, I wanted to be a doctor or a scientist.
I had this great teacher, Mr. House, who taught us how to make extemporaneous speeches, let us lie down under our desks and read us Where the Red Fern Grows, and took us on after school bike rides to get root beer floats. He also worked at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and one day he brought in a dead bobcat for us to dissect. Some of the girls were grossed out, but I thought it was fun. I had a microscope and loved making little glass slides with everything from dead ants to a tastebud from my best friend’s tongue. I think the part about wanting to be a doctor was about liking science but also wanting to help people.
​
Breaking The Pattern of A Chronic Issue
Fast forward to my adult life. I got my Masters Degree in Social Work when I was 25, and lived out my interest in medicine and helping people at a nonprofit working with people with HIV and AIDS. A few short years later, I was in a stressful relationship and living in a moldy house, and my whole system collapsed. I developed severe sensitivities to everything. Mold, paint, fragrances of any kind, grass, tress, cooking smells, and many other things. I was basically allergic to life. I left my job and eventually my home in Austin and moved to a "camp" for people with environmental illness outside of Dallas. ​
​
I still had my interest in science and I wasn't working so, like many people I met with this condition, I had time to research ways to heal. I saw doctors who specialized in my condition and prescribed nutritional supplements and preservative-free allergy shots. I altered my diet. I prayed, I meditated. I worked on my emotional issues. This combined with avoiding most environmental toxins helped, but I was still on disability and living isolated from society.​
​
​The Power of Neuroplasticity
Then finally, I found some fascinating science that I could really sink my teeth into. I learned about neuroplasticity and how our brains can be rewired to create healthier responses to triggers. ​I read books about it and listened to speakers on YouTube, and was sure this could help me, but didn't know how to implement it for my unique set of problems.
Then someone told me about a brain retraining program specifically for people with environmental illness. I brought the trainer to Dallas, and a small group of us spent 3 days learning how to give our brains new modes of sensory input – verbal, physical, and visual - each time they repeated the stuck pattern of hypersensitivity. On the second day, I remember going to the park with two of my friends from the training with the assignemnt of practicing the exercises 100 times. When we were done, I could feel my brain buzzing, and I knew something was going on in there. I remember feeling a sense of excitement and possibility, the thought of being able to enjoy all the good smells of the upcoming holidays. I got my first taste of this that night walking to my room. It was fall, and for the first time in years, instead of running to get indoors away from the odor of smoke, I enjoyed the feeling of coziness and warmth evoked by the smell of fireplace smoke in the crisp, autumn air.
​
Believing I Could Be Well Again
During that time, I was also participating in conference calls where the facilitator would work with people using principals of unconditional love and acceptance. I witnessed people's connections in their brains change when they felt loved and accepted in the face of admitting things about themselves that were often quite painful. I participated in the calls for a few years until I finally got up the courage to go to a weekend workshop being put on in Dallas by the author of the principals.​ While holding me in his arms like a baby, he told me that I thought I had to be sick, but I didn't. I actually got to be happy and live life. When he said that, I saw an image of the life I had been living away from everyone and everything and then one of being with people and feeling loved and connected like I was with him in that moment. That seemed like the happier choice, so I believed him.
​
After the workshop, I stayed in the home of one of the participants. I agreed not to ask her to change anything in her environment – perfume, cleaning products, laundry soap etc. Every time I got afraid of a smell, I had to call someone and tell them I was afraid. This wasn't easy, but I kept doing it, and it worked! It became clear to me that I had transferred past fears from my relationship and other things to smells. Within a few short months, I had moved to Dallas into a regular apartment and had rejoined society. My symptoms didn't go away overnight, but I now knew they weren't going to kill me.
​
Discovering Accelearted Resolution Therapy​
I returned to working and eventually landed a position at a nonprofit working with cancer patients. Because of my own experience with life-altering illness and having to depend on government programs to meet my basic needs, I found I was uniquely qualified to bear witness to the fear and pain of the patients I worked with. I was humbled and moved by people's willingness to trust me when they were at their worst and put their hearts in my hands.
​
While I was there, I got trained in Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and began using it with my clients. The effects were profound. The first client I did ART with had witnessed the traumatic death of loved one to cancer and had lost the ability to hear their loved one's voice. I saw my client go from being curled in on themselves in devastation, to literally bouncing in their seat with joy like a child at the end of their first ART session. I witnessed the power of how eye movements and creative visualizations could help people rewire their brains quickly and effectively.
​
This is what led me to start a private counseling practice. I want to get ART out there to as many people as possible, to bring the possibility of healing without having to retell all the horrible details of their trauma to people whose lives have been turned upside down by stress, fear and illness like mine was.