It can take great courage and commitment to see, name, and heal the wounds of the mind.

Mental or emotional trauma can arise from shattering one-time events or from persistent, relentless stress. You may have experienced abuse or neglect in childhood, sexual assault, war or combat, intimate partner abuse, infidelity, gun violence, racism or inequality, financial distress or impoverishment, infertility, or childbirth. Perhaps you suffered an accident, lived through a natural disaster, were exposed to tragic events or images at work, or are struggling with the loss of a loved one.

Whatever the cause, the ongoing effects of trauma can be devastating. Trauma can rewire your brain and body, causing you to experience everyday events as life-threatening emergencies. If left unaddressed, trauma can make you feel unsafe in the world, erode trust and intimacy in relationships, lead to chronic anger, anxiety, depression, irritability, or detachment, contribute to physical ailments, or diminish motivation and effectiveness at work.

Making matters worse, perhaps someone close to you has said you need to move on, relax, or just get over it. That kind of response compounds the problem, adding to your feelings of helplessness a sense that there must be something wrong with you.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Recovery is possible.

In trauma-focused therapy, we will process your trauma while building real-world skills to reduce the impact of the painful memories, thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations associated with your trauma. You and I will work together to help you identify and create distance from unhelpful patterns of thought, notice the fight-or-flight reaction and respond with more intention, find safety and security in your body, grieve losses, and enhance post-traumatic growth.

Giving voice to your experience, feeling heard by someone else, and making meaning of the trauma can be transformative. Trauma-focused therapy gives you the space to do just that, so that you may eventually be able to make peace with your past.

As trauma can impact the support system around the person who experienced it, I also offer conjoint therapy, for individuals wishing to involve in their trauma therapy a partner, a family member, or another loved one. By inviting into your trauma therapy a member of your support system, you can harness a close relationship’s inherent power of healing, while also fostering emotional connection between you and a loved one.