Trauma & PTSD Therapy

Healing is possible.

“Trauma is not a flaw or a weakness. It is a highly effective tool of safety and survival. Trauma is also not an event. Trauma is the body’s protective response to an event—or a series of events—that it perceives as potentially dangerous.”

— Resmaa Menakem

Trauma can leave you feeling empty, anxious, depressed, confused, in a fog, angry, isolated, stuck, and frozen in time.

Whether you’ve been through a single life-changing event, or have experienced prolonged interpersonal discord or abuse, healing is possible.

Trauma can be the result of one life-changing event, or it can occur from a lifetime of abuse, neglect and disconnection.

The symptoms you’re experiencing may be a result of:

  • Threats against your life and/or when your safety was in danger.

  • Military and combat service.

  • Sexual violence, coercion, or non-consensual encounters.

  • Growing up with abuse, neglect, addiction issues, or emotionally immature caregivers.

  • Racial and cultural violence.

  • Intergenerational wounds related to greater socio-political factors, spanning across space, time, and cultures (i.e., slavery, the Holocaust, war, migration).

  • Institutional violence (i.e., being LGBTQ+ in a country, culture, workplace, or faith that actively invalidates, doesn’t protect, or tries to change you).

Symptoms of Trauma

  • Anxiety

  • Panic attacks

  • Depression

  • Flashbacks

  • Hypervigiliance

  • Shakiness

  • Shortness of breath

  • Exaggerated startle response

  • Insomnia and hypersomnia

  • Nightmares

  • Rage/uncontrollable anger

  • Unwanted memories

  • Inability to experience pleasure

  • Feeling isolated

  • Risky or destructive behavior

  • Dissociation or depersonalization

  • Avoidance

  • Thoughts of suicide

Racial & Cultural Trauma

“Racial oppression is a traumatic form of interpersonal violence which can lacerate the spirit, scar the soul, and puncture the psyche.”

— Kenneth Hardy, PhD

You can move beyond what’s happened to you.

We don’t often get to choose what’s happened to us, but we do get to choose how we respond and move forward. There are ways to heal so that you don’t continue feeling stuck, confused, lost, depressed, angry, anxious, or alone,

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery")

The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the area with gold, silver, or platinum. As a result, the pottery looks more beautiful in its repair, owning its broken history, rather than masking it.

You can reconnect, heal, and move forward.

What healing may look like in a therapy session:

  • Being able to tell your story in a confidential space, within a safe therapeutic relationship.

  • Reconnecting to emotions and sensations that have never had the space to be expressed.

  • Slowly reconnecting your mind, body, and sprit as you explore the events that have caused severe pain and disconnection.

  • Accessing the subconscious through art, creativity and experimentation.

  • Reclaiming your story, voice, and power and creating a more helpful narrative.

  • Acknowledging the strengths and parts of yourself that protected you and allowed you to survive.

  • Finding new meaning and agency in the events of your life, letting this inform how you want to choose your path moving forward.

Ready to talk? Let’s connect.