M I D W E S T   C E N T E R
F O R   T R A U M A  &  E M O T I O N A L  H E A L I N G

















Dawn McClelland, Ph.D., and Licensed Psychologist is co-founder and director at Midwest Center for
Trauma and Emotional Healing in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Dr. McClelland has privileges at Regions
Hospital Burn Center and has worked with burn and electrical injury survivors and their families in both
the acute hospitalization and aftercare phases of recovery sinse 1997. With over 23 years of
experience, Dr. McClelland provides supervision, consultation, and training to mental health and
medical professionals, clergy, and other survivor-centered agencies regarding trauma neurology and
the biological basis of trauma. She also works with therapists and caregivers addressing compassion
fatigue and secondary post-traumatic stress.

The focus of her work is to help people heal from the profound effects of trauma, sexual abuse,
ritualistic abuse, political violence, including human trafficking and war experiences. She has extensive
training in understanding post-traumatic stress, dissociation, and other complex trauma responses.

Dr. McClelland comes from a non-pathology based, integrative and holistic paradigm, that brings
together the neurobiological processes of healing with narrative and competency based therapies. She
is trained in EMDR, Alpha Stimulation, and neuro-biological trauma therapy models, which are
foundational in addressing the impact of trauma upon the different parts of our mind, brain structures,
and body/sensory systems.

Dr. McClelland is characterized by her sensitivity towards people and her respect for their integrity as
they work through past and current issues. In her work she collaboratively integrates and explores
alternative ways of working that respect the individual’s life experiences, wisdom, culture, and spiritual
beliefs. She supports survivor’s resiliency and dignity in the face of profound grief and distress.
Gracious interweaving of the therapeutic relationship creates an emotional and physical space for
survivors to gently neutralize the conditioning, systematic thinking, and automatic physiological
response that are normal responses from fear, coercion, and control. She is sensitive to the subtleties
and complexities of power in relationship. Her work specifically helps clients to gain an understanding
of what happens in their emotions, their brain neurology, and in their bodies during and following
abuse. She helps people move past frozen states and heal from fear, shame and humiliation, without
being overcome by the trauma. She helps balance numbing and fear responses, helping clients
reinstate their ability to be grounded and present with themselves and in relationships with others.

Dr. McClelland has done extensive international travel. She has participated and led
medical teams to Haiti that provided medical care and reproductive health education.
Under the wisdom and leadership of the women of Tricotte, Haiti, Dr. McClelland helped co-develop a
village based women’s health initiative organizing women’s groups and
community support to manage physical and sexual violence. She gratefully acknowledges the many
survivors, caregivers, and providers who have shared their true experience, wisdom, and teaching
over the last two decades.
16204 Highway 7   
Minnetonka, MN 55345    

Office: 952.934.2555     
Fax:  952.934.3010   

mwtraumacenter.com    
info@mwtraumacenter.com

Map To Our Location
DAWN E MCCLELLAND PHD. LP.

952.232.7712
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