Therapy for Complex Trauma
Have you been through trauma you are ready to heal from, and you simply don’t know where to start?
Whether you have been navigating the aftermath of single-incident or chronic trauma, your pain matters. Trauma can result from negative experiences within our family of origin, romantic partnerships, or other salient relationships and environments. If you are healing from childhood trauma, interpersonal violence (e.g., verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse), trauma resulting from oppression or identity-based discrimination, emotional neglect, or relational misattunement, you are worthy of unwavering support and understanding.
If you feel like you’ve been in survival mode following harmful experiences, you are not alone. Trauma sets our nervous systems on fire, allowing our brains to quickly learn how to respond to real and perceived danger. While our brains work to keep us feeling safe, it is not uncommon to feel like we don’t have complete choice or power over our experiences and reactions following trauma.
What we are often left with are strongly honed protective coping responses that both serve a function and can also be exhausting to uphold.
Trauma and its lasting impact don’t have to rule your life anymore.
Imagine for a moment what it might be like to re-introduce groundedness and autonomy to your inner thoughts, emotions, and bodily reactions when reminded of past traumatic pain. Through trauma-informed therapy, you can begin to understand cues that evoke a sense of fear or safety within yourself. From there, we’ll work together to find creative ways to regulate your mind-body connection.
I specialize in providing trauma-informed counseling to people healing from Complex Trauma (C-PTSD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I hope you’ll find my approach to trauma therapy to emphasize a foundation of relational and emotional safety, meaning that building trust and connection with you is central to your therapeutic care. I am less prone to lead with cognitive or behavioral interventions in trauma counseling, such as encouraging you to change the way you think about or initially respond to traumatic activation - I find this can feel invalidating or assign judgment to people who have endured or are still enduring real pain. I support that my clients develop valid strategies to survive and deserve compassion for finding ways to do so. We can also explore any perceived costs of your protective coping and understand what may be happening within your nervous system, working together to slow down automatic responses and promote increased autonomy over time. Together, we can restore your trust in yourself and chosen others, as well as your sense of choice in deciding how to show up in the world.
