YOU ARE NOT YOUR TRAUMA.

Trauma therapy in Los Angeles, across California, and Colorado

You have worked so hard to manage the effects of your trauma, but life still feels overwhelming.

Do any of these sound familiar?

Maybe the effects of trauma are showing up as you not being able to be the partner, parent, or friend that you know you can and want to be.

Maybe you believe that when things go wrong it must be your fault and this encourages you to keep your life small.

Maybe it’s just too hard to experience any peace or joy because you are always protecting yourself emotionally from what might possibly go wrong.

Maybe you’re tired of your past hijacking your present and future.

The effects of trauma show up in many ways.

  • You find yourself constantly trying to anticipate what might happen next and figure out how you could influence people and situations to have a different outcome. Maybe you’ve lost your energy for people and interest in things that used to bring you joy.

  • Does it ever feel that you cannot trust your perception of other people and situations? You constantly wonder about whether people are being honest about their intentions. This lack of trust may be causing you to doubt yourself and hurt the relationships you care most about.

  • Sometimes, when you’re just living your life - listening to your child talk about the day or spending an intimate moment with your partner - and all of a sudden you feel blindsided by a memory that takes you out of the moment and leaves you feeling raw. Your joy has been stolen and it's hard to be present for the things that matter to you now.

  • Hypervigilance is exhausting. Maybe you find yourself trying to predict what could possibly go wrong and how to keep it from happening. You often feel that it's all on you to make sure everyone stays safe. You often think, “If I can just anticipate a problem, then maybe I can solve it before it happens.”

  • Early in life, you learned to accept being treated in a way that continues to diminish your sense of self.

    When you feel that you are too much, not enough, or both you may be looking outside of yourself to find your worth. This can lead to people-pleasing, codependency behaviors, and devaluing self-care.

Trauma Therapy is for…

PTSD and Complex PTSD (cPTSD) 

Childhood Sexual Abuse & Sexual Assault

Interpersonal trauma (abuse, harassment, bullying)

Shock trauma (crime or war)

Situational trauma (accidents or natural disasters)

How trauma therapy works…

Trauma therapy helps you gain access to your innate ability to heal and to creatively and skillfully manage challenges as they arise. Healing requires awareness, curiosity, and compassion toward your memories, thoughts, emotions, and body sensations.  You will learn how to be present and tolerate emotions as they come up rather than trying to exert control over others and events.

We’ll work on what it means to “open your hand” and allow life in.

It’s like the analogy of holding a bar of soap too tightly, forcing it to fly out of your hand. It’s not helpful to be upset with yourself or the soap when this happens. Rather, you can open your hand, allow the soap to be, and it will lay there allowing you access to it.

Together we will…

  • Create a safe and supportive relationship where you can trust that your well-being is my #1 priority.
  • Identify the right pace for what you choose to share and when you share it.

Build safety & trust.

  • Process your memories in ways that will help you find relief, without re-traumatizing you.
  • Understand how trauma has shaped your beliefs and behaviors.
  • Learn new skills that support your overall well-being and healthy relationships.
  • Create a new narrative about your life’s story.

Develop insight & learn healthy coping skills.

  • Rediscover the authentic self that was overshadowed.
  • Reconnect to a full range of emotions.
  • Connect to a sense of agency and empowerment.
  • Find a sense of purpose and make meaning of your trauma.

Reclaim the parts of you that were lost to trauma.

Trauma-focused therapies help in unique ways.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy/ Somatic Therapy 

A gentle, body-centered therapy which addresses unresolved trauma that is stuck in your nervous system. Somatic therapy helps release frozen emotions, resolves past traumas, and teaches how the body can support emotional regulation. 
An approach focused on understanding the various parts of our experience (e.g. inner critic, people pleaser) to achieve greater awareness, compassion, and integration of conflicting parts. IFS leads to an expansive sense of self, acceptance and wholeness

Internal Family Systems (IFS) 

Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), Mindfulness Meditation,, and Psychedelic Assisted Therapy facilitate a deeper, transformative exploration of your unique experience and universal truths. These methods promote self-awareness, emotional regulation, and resilience.

Expanded and Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness

Trauma therapy can help you…

  • Embrace your authenticity and true worth
  • Nurture self-compassion 
  • Help you trust yourself and others
  • Understand & regulate your emotions
  • Set & hold healthy boundaries
  • Repair and experience deep & supportive relationships

Freedom from trauma.

Find freedom from the effects of trauma.

FAQs

  • Trauma is when our mind and body becomes so overwhelmed by an event that we cannot process it or make sense of what has happened. Complex trauma is when trauma experiences are perpetuated over a long time and the traumatic state becomes the norm.

  • The effects of trauma include neurological, physiological, and psychological challenges. There are evidence based, trauma-focused therapy modalities (EMDR, somatic, IFS, mindfulness-based) that specifically address trauma related symptoms and recovery.

  • Stabilization includes being able to stay present and regulate emotions in therapy and daily life.

    Processing traumatic memories to reduce their intensity and power without being re-traumatized.

    Integration means reconnecting to yourself & others and making meaning from what you have experienced.