Trauma therapy
How trauma continues to affect us.
An experience may be over while its effects remain part of everyday life. My work considers how trauma influences your sense of yourself, your relationships, and the ways you respond to the world around you.
Recognizing the effects of trauma
Trauma can affect how you feel in your body, how you relate to others, and how safe the world seems. You may feel constantly on guard, disconnected, overwhelmed by reminders, or unsure why certain situations feel so difficult.
I support people with significant trauma, including PTSD, single-event trauma, and childhood or developmental trauma. I have a particular focus on supporting people who have experienced sexual trauma.
One-Time Trauma
A single experience can continue to affect you long after it has ended.
Childhood Trauma
When painful experiences happened repeatedly or early in life, their effects may also be woven into your sense of self, relationships, and expectations of other people.
An early experience can become part of what a person expects from relationships without being recognized as the source of that expectation. We consider these connections alongside what you are experiencing now.
Sexual Trauma
Sexual trauma can affect trust, intimacy, boundaries, and your relationship with your own body. You may know what happened clearly, remember only parts, or find it difficult to put your experience into words.
We explore how these experiences affect your relationships, boundaries, and sense of self today. You choose what to discuss, and any trauma processing follows assessment and preparation.
Your sessions
In our sessions, we explore how traumatic experiences continue to affect your life. You might bring a difficult interaction, a feeling you cannot quite understand, or a physical response that seems out of proportion to what is happening. I listen to how you experience these moments and consider with you how they may relate to your history and relationships, including what happens between us in therapy.
Some sessions involve talking and reflection; others may include body-aware work or EMDR, depending on your needs and our preparation. When we use EMDR, we attend to the feelings, thoughts, and physical sensations connected to an experience. Sessions for reflection and support give us room to discuss what came up and how you have been feeling afterward. Trauma processing is one part of the broader psychotherapy.
Read more about the EMDR session process.