TRAUMA THERAPY
Trauma can shape the way people experience themselves, relationships, emotions, safety, intimacy, trust, and connection long after the original experiences are over.
Many trauma survivors become highly skilled at adaptation.
Sometimes that looks like hyper-independence, emotional self-containment, perfectionism, hypervigilance, dissociation, numbness, chronic people-pleasing, or feeling like you always need to stay emotionally ahead of other people in order to remain safe.
Often people appear highly functional externally while privately carrying enormous amounts of fear, shame, grief, loneliness, anger, or emotional exhaustion.
I don’t believe trauma work should involve forcing disclosure, emotional flooding, or pushing people to revisit painful experiences before enough trust and safety exist in the therapeutic relationship.
Much of my professional background has involved working with people living with severe trauma histories, chronic suicidality, addiction, institutionalization, housing instability, and experiences of systemic violence and disenfranchisement.
I work relationally and psychodynamically, which means I’m interested not only in what happened to you, but also in how those experiences continue to shape the ways you move through relationships, understand yourself, and protect yourself emotionally in the present.
Many trauma survivors have spent years feeling like they need to carry everything internally by themselves.
Therapy can become a place where you no longer feel like you need to edit, contain, or carefully manage every part of your experience in order to keep another person from shutting down, pulling away, or becoming overwhelmed.
