If you carry trauma inside...​​

Firstly, during every trauma therapy session, you can expect a safe and supportive environment at all times. At the same time, the content and process of each session differs based on the stage of trauma therapy that you're in. During the first stage of trauma therapy (establishing safety), I will focus on building trust and rapport with you while asking general questions about your experiences, seeking just enough detail to get therapy started, while also collecting information about your overall life picture. During the second phase of trauma therapy (remembrance and mourning), I will gently ask you questions about your traumatic experiences to clarify the feelings and meanings attached to those experiences. While sharing some level of detail about a traumatic memory is necessary to process it, the emphasis is on the feelings and meanings, which I will highlight as they surface in your description of the relevant events. Highlighting these elements helps foster a sense of safety, clarity, and trust in learning to regulate the nervous system through gradual, controlled exposure to traumatic memories. Especially during the early stages of trauma therapy, I will closely monitor your reactions to trauma processing for any signs of overwhelm. If it appears that you're beginning to feel overwhelmed, I will pause the process to help you regulate your nervous system with mindfulness and breathing strategies which I will guide you through, or by focusing on different but still relevant topics, such as day-to-day coping, or positive factors in your life that support your wellbeing, until it is safe to try to process your traumatic memories again. In the final stage of trauma therapy (reconnecting), I will help you to devise strategies to protect the functioning of your nervous system and navigate challenging situations that may threaten to dysregulate it. This process involves identifying and building on your strengths and positive life experiences, and fostering a supportive community to help strengthen and protect your wellbeing.

Trauma therapy is suitable for many individuals, but the course of therapy will vary depending on the type and severity of trauma. Also, it can be a challenging experience which requires the willingness to re-experience traumatic memories and learn to regulate one's nervous system when it is triggered, which is the heart of trauma processing. Not everyone is prepared for this at every stage of life. Additionally, trauma processing is best done while a client's life is relatively stable, as volatile life circumstances can make traumatic symptoms worse when openly examined and processed in therapy. By analogy, the best time for surgery is when a patient isn't experiencing a health crisis! If a client's life situation becomes unstable for whatever reason through the course of therapy, I will promptly but gently pause our work, and ensure that the client can manage their symptoms for the time being. I will help the client to stabilize their situation before attempting to resume processing their trauma.

While the course of trauma therapy varies, since the severity and nature of traumatic experiences is unique to each client, therapy typically lasts several months, or years for clients for whom ongoing support is beneficial. At the same time, the frequency of sessions may vary from weekly to monthly sessions, depending on the client's needs and preferences, as well as the stage of trauma therapy there are undergoing. Typically, the more severe a client's trauma is and the earlier the stage of therapy, the more frequently therapy takes place. As with every client issue I work with, I will check in regularly with you to ensure that therapy is meeting your needs and strive to optimize it wherever possible!

This is an excellent and vital question to unpack. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) typically results from a single, identifiable traumatic event. It's characterized by symptoms such as flashbacks to the event, constantly heightened nerves even in nonthreatening situations, and the avoidance of scenarios that trigger memories of the event or pose a perceived risk of recurrence. Examples that I have worked with include workplace harassment, kidnapping, and assault. While shocking and by no means easy to overcome, symptoms generally subside with time and a supportive community. .It’s Complex trauma, on the other hand, arises from prolonged or repeated exposure to traumatic experiences throughout life. Often, these begin during critical developmental periods in childhood, in which case they're called Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). In contrast to PTSD, complex trauma leads to more wide-ranging, lasting effects on emotional regulation, self-identity, and relationships. they’re Obviously, PTSD and complex trauma represent wildly different, although related, experiences which require a unique combination of therapeutic approaches to treat effectively! For PTSD, I lean on humanist and solution-focused tools to help clients process the specific trauma and regain a sense of safety and control. I key in on themes of freedom and meaning on the humanist side, and emphasize the clients' strengths, such as their skills, and positive life factors, such as a strong support network, within the solution-focused domain. When addressing complex trauma, I weave family systems tools with humanist and solution-focused approaches to clarify past and present relational patterns and support healing in interpersonal contexts. My intent with this approach is to help clients rebuild their capacity to trust significant others, improve relationships and create new and necessary ones, and discover deeper meaning in their lives in the context of potentially lifelong symptoms, albeit manageable with the right tools and practice.

I find the answer to this question both challenging and ultimately uplifting, because in my experience, truly recovering from trauma isn't what many people think. I'll start with the bad news: there is no "pill" to erase trauma. You will not forget what happened to you, and you many never stop feeling what the trauma subjected you to in everyday situations where you experience heightened anxiety because of your unique history of trauma. Trauma, especially complex trauma, comes with its own enduring grief, just like how every time you hear that song, you're reminded of the person you loved. Except, the "song" of trauma is one that no one wants to- and no one deserves to- hear. But here's the good news: recovering from trauma, as with grief, has a lot to do with love. in the series, WandaVision, the character Vision asks his counterpart Wanda Maximoff, "What is grief but love persevering?" and in trauma recovery, loves perseveres, too. Indeed, in both my personal and professional experience, recovering from trauma involves profoundly developing love for yourself and how you endured what once broke you, love for who helped you and who continues to, and love for the meaning of life your experiences have given you. What I think you'll find when you recover from trauma is that along with love, you will develop ironclad purpose and conviction, because suffering and purpose are intimately connected. Consider this: what higher purpose is there than to alleviate and protect others from the suffering that you've endured? In practical, therapeutic terms, recovering from PTSD and complex trauma is a gradual process characterized by regaining a sense of safety, self-awareness, and emotional balance. You can imagine it as moving from a state of constant heightened nerves and emotional overwhelm (whether expressed outwardly in anxiety or anger, or internalized in "blocking out" stimuli) toward increased calmness and the ability to engage meaningfully in relationships and daily life. In terms of the specific approaches I use with clients, recovery involves finding meaning and reconnecting with one’s authentic self, building resilience with healthier coping strategies built on your skills and strengths, and developing and leveraging healthier relationships. While the journey varies for each individual, you'll generally notice a growing capacity to experience positive emotions, set boundaries, and find deeper meaning and purpose. You won't forget your trauma, and you won't banish your demons- whether they exist only in memory or revisit you in your life. Instead, on your good days, you'll master them and prove to yourself how incredible you are to endure your past and present the way that you do. On your bad days, you'll live with your demons in dignity and ensure, by applying your skills and capacity to endure, that your demons will not master you. And on every day, they'll remind you of the purpose that your trauma gave you.