Trauma therapy is a specialized form of psychological treatment designed to help you process and heal from traumatic experiences that continue to impact your daily life. Unlike traditional talk therapy, trauma therapy uses evidence-based approaches that target the way traumatic memories are stored in your brain and nervous system, allowing for deeper and more lasting healing.

Many women who come to my practice have spent years wondering if their experiences were bad enough to warrant trauma therapy. The truth is that trauma is not defined by the event itself but by how it impacted you. If past experiences continue to affect your thoughts, feelings, relationships, or physical health, trauma therapy may be beneficial. You do not need to be in crisis to deserve support.

Trauma therapy can address a wide range of experiences, from single-incident traumas such as car accidents, medical procedures, or assaults, to complex ongoing traumatic situations like growing up in a home with addiction, emotional neglect, or domestic violence. There is no hierarchy of trauma, and your experience is valid regardless of how it might compare to someone else's story.

No. The therapeutic approaches I use, including EMDR and Accelerated Resolution Therapy, can be highly effective without extensive verbal disclosure of what happened. You can think about the traumatic memory internally without describing it aloud. I will guide you through the process, but you maintain control over what you share verbally. Many clients find this approach less retraumatizing than traditional talk therapy.

The duration varies significantly from person to person. If you are working through a specific traumatic incident, treatment may be relatively brief, with some clients experiencing significant relief in a matter of weeks using focused approaches like EMDR or ART. If you experienced complex or developmental trauma, particularly trauma that occurred repeatedly over time during childhood, healing typically takes longer as it affects your sense of self, relationships, and nervous system in deeper ways.

Your first session is a 50-minute guided conversation where I get to know you and understand what you would like to work on changing. I will ask about your current symptoms, how past experiences are affecting you now, and your goals for therapy. You do not need to share every detail of your trauma in this session. My goal is to understand how past experiences are affecting you now, not to extract every detail of what happened.

Effective trauma therapy begins with a foundation-building phase. Before we process difficult material, I help you develop the resources and skills you need to feel safe and grounded. This means learning practical tools to regulate your nervous system, manage anxiety, and cope with difficult emotions. This preparation is not a delay in treatment but an essential component of effective trauma healing.

Yes, trauma therapy can significantly help with physical symptoms that have roots in unresolved trauma. When you experience trauma, your nervous system can become stuck in a state of hyperarousal or hypoarousal, contributing to chronic pain, tension headaches, digestive issues, and fatigue. Many women I work with have been to multiple doctors without finding answers. Often, these symptoms have a strong connection to unresolved trauma and chronic nervous system activation.

EMDR processes trauma through bilateral stimulation rather than relying solely on cognitive discussion. While traditional talk therapy focuses on discussing and analyzing experiences, EMDR targets the way traumatic memories are stored in your brain and nervous system. Many clients find EMDR requires less detailed verbal processing and tends to work faster, often showing significant results in fewer sessions.

While I do not bill directly to insurance providers, I provide receipts that you can submit for possible reimbursement. Many extended health plans cover services provided by registered therapists.