Trauma Therapy
Adaptations work — until they don't.
We get hurt in relationships and we heal in relationships, too. Whether it's a single major event or the complex, compaunding effect of a smaller "t" trauma, it shapes how you show up now.
Even when trauma comes from a single event, there’s often a relational piece to the story.
It’s not always just what happened. It’s also what happened when you needed someone.
I work with Emotionally Focused Therapy and somatic approaches (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing) to help you overcome the aftermath of trauma.
Yes, that means the "F" word - feelings! AND the "B" word - body!
I may actually ask where you feel it and what you are noticing.
It is normal to not have the answers at first.
Insight alone rarely resolves traumatic overwhelm and simply re-telling the story can in fact be unhelpful and retraumatizing. Real recovery means regaining the psychological flexibility that trauma often robs us of.
This is bottom up work: we are not just talking about what happened
- We will go at your pace -
Resilience definitely does not mean "always calm." It's a flexible response, sized to what's actually happening, and the ability to come back to balance afterward.
It's noticing when something shifts. It's tolerating discomfort (and joy) without feeling completelty paralyzed or overwhelmed.
You can build that capacity: an anchor steady enough to hold through the storms life brings.
We can't stop the weather. But we can build what lets you live through it.
Together we will work to:
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Build the capacity to stay present. Before we go near what's painful, we make sure you have a way to stay grounded while we do — an anchor to return to when things get activated.
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Understand your adaptations, not just judge them. The ways you learned to cope — shutting down, staying hyper-alert, holding it together — made sense at the time. We look at what they were protecting you from, and what they're costing you now.
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Work with the body, not just the story. We follow sensation, image, and impulse alongside the narrative, because trauma often lives in our system long after the storm has passed.
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Widen the window of what your body learned to tolerate. The goal isn't constant calm, it's not natural! the goal is a nervous system that can respond flexibly to what's actually happening, and find its way back to balance afterward.
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Reconnect without losing yourself. As your system settles, closeness, vulnerability, and joy become easier to tolerate, not just distress. Because trauma doesn't numb selectively — it trips the whole circuit. Joy goes dark along with the pain.
