Counseling for Trauma

What Happened to You Doesn’t Have to Define You

Therapist sitting with client while client sits crisscross on the couch.

If painful experiences from your past still control your present, you’re not alone. Whether it was a single event or years of hurt, whether you have PTSD or something happened that changed you, healing is possible. You’ve survived. Now you deserve support to truly thrive.

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When the Past Won’t Stay in the Past

Living with unprocessed pain is exhausting. It affects everything, often in ways you don’t even realize until someone helps you connect the dots.

Common Signs of Unprocessed Painful Experiences and Trauma

Memories That Won’t Leave You Alone

The images, sounds, or feelings intrude at the worst times. You might have nightmares that leave you exhausted. Sometimes you’re suddenly back there, feeling the same terror as if it’s happening now instead of being safely in the past. These flashbacks can be triggered by anything that reminds you of what happened, or they might strike without warning. You try to push the memories away, but they keep coming back. This isn’t weakness or being unable to “let it go.” It’s how your brain tries to process overwhelming experiences. These intrusive memories are a sign that what happened needs proper processing, which is exactly what specialized treatment provides.

Always on Guard, Never Safe

You can’t relax even when you should feel safe. Your body stays tense, ready to react to danger at any moment. You might startle easily, have trouble sleeping, or constantly scan your environment for threats. This hypervigilance is exhausting but feels necessary because your nervous system learned that the world isn’t safe. You might avoid places or situations that remind you of what happened, and your world gradually becomes smaller. Some people isolate themselves completely. This chronic state of alarm isn’t sustainable. Your body and mind need to learn that while bad things happened, you’re safe now. Treatment helps recalibrate your nervous system so you can finally rest.

Avoiding Anything That Reminds You

You go to great lengths to avoid people, places, activities, or even thoughts that remind you of what happened. This makes sense as a coping strategy. If something triggers painful memories or feelings, naturally you want to stay away from it. The problem is that avoidance often expands over time. Your world gets smaller and smaller. You might avoid entire categories of experiences just to be safe. This actually prevents healing because you never learn that you can handle these reminders or that they’re not actually dangerous. Treatment helps you gradually face what you’ve been avoiding, at your own pace, in a safe environment where you can finally process what happened.

Intense Emotional Reactions You Can’t Control

Small things trigger big reactions. You might explode in anger over minor frustrations, burst into tears without understanding why, or experience overwhelming anxiety in situations that don’t warrant it. These reactions often feel out of proportion to what’s actually happening now, but they make sense when you understand that your nervous system is responding to past danger as if it’s current. Your emotional regulation system got disrupted by what happened. You’re not overreacting or being dramatic. Your brain and body are stuck in survival mode. Therapy helps you understand these reactions, develop tools to manage them, and eventually recalibrate your system so responses match current reality rather than past danger.

Shame, Guilt, and Negative Beliefs About Yourself

Many people blame themselves for what happened, even when it clearly wasn’t their fault. You might carry deep shame about what you did or didn’t do, how you responded, or what happened to you. Thoughts like “I’m damaged,” “I’m dirty,” “I deserved it,” or “I should have stopped it” might replay constantly. You might feel guilty for surviving when others didn’t, or for not being able to just “get over it.” These beliefs often feel absolutely true even when logically you know better. They shape how you see yourself and limit what you believe you deserve. Part of healing is challenging these distorted beliefs and developing a more accurate, compassionate understanding of what happened and who you are.

Difficulty Sleeping and Nightmares

Sleep becomes a battlefield. You might have trouble falling asleep because your body won’t settle down enough to rest. Or you fall asleep but wake frequently, never reaching deep restorative sleep. Nightmares about what happened, or nightmares that carry the same emotional tone even if the content is different, leave you exhausted and afraid to sleep. Some people avoid sleep entirely because the nightmares are so distressing. Your brain is trying to process what happened during sleep, but without proper treatment, it just replays the pain without resolution. Specialized therapy helps your brain properly process what happened so sleep can become restful again instead of another place you experience the trauma.

Less Obvious Ways Trauma & Painful Experiences Shows Up

Numbness and Disconnection from Yourself

For many people, the opposite of flashbacks is feeling nothing at all. You might feel disconnected from yourself, like you’re watching your life from outside your body. Emotions feel muted or absent entirely. You go through the motions but don’t really feel present. Some people describe feeling dead inside or like they’re behind glass. This emotional numbing is actually a protective response. When feelings become too overwhelming, your mind shuts them down. The problem is that you can’t selectively numb. When you block painful emotions, you also lose access to joy, love, and connection. Treatment helps you safely reconnect with your emotions at a pace you can handle.

Trust and Relationship Struggles

If someone hurt you, your brain learned that people can be dangerous. This makes sense as a survival mechanism, but it makes relationships incredibly difficult. You might push people away even when you desperately want connection. Or you might cling too tightly, terrified of abandonment. Intimacy feels threatening. You might test people constantly or sabotage relationships before they can hurt you. Maybe you choose partners who repeat harmful patterns because at least that feels familiar. These aren’t character flaws. They’re adaptations that once protected you but now limit your life. Healing means learning that while people hurt you before, not everyone will, and that connection is possible again.

Physical Symptoms Doctors Can’t Fully Explain

Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget. You might experience chronic pain, headaches, digestive issues, or other physical symptoms that doctors can’t fully explain with medical tests. Stress hormones constantly flooding your system take a toll. Some people develop autoimmune conditions or other health problems linked to chronic stress. You might feel unsafe in your own body, which makes sense if your body was where bad things happened. This mind-body connection is real and important. Healing isn’t just about processing memories. It’s also about helping you feel safe and at home in your body again through approaches that address both psychological and somatic aspects of trauma.

Difficulty Concentrating and Memory Problems

You might notice that you can’t focus like you used to. Your mind wanders, you forget things, or you have trouble making decisions. Reading or following conversations becomes difficult. This isn’t about intelligence or competence. Chronic hypervigilance and hyperarousal tax your brain’s resources. When your nervous system is constantly scanning for danger and managing intrusive memories, there’s less mental energy available for everyday tasks. Memory problems are also common because trauma affects how your brain encodes and stores information. Additionally, dissociation, which many trauma survivors experience, creates gaps in memory and attention. As you heal and your nervous system calms, these cognitive functions typically improve significantly.

Self-Destructive Behaviors and Substance Use

Many trauma survivors turn to alcohol, drugs, or other self-destructive behaviors to cope with overwhelming feelings. These behaviors often started as attempts to manage pain, numb emotions, or sleep. Maybe substances are the only time you feel relaxed, or hurting yourself is the only way you feel something when you’re numb. These coping mechanisms make sense as attempts to survive unbearable experiences. The problem is they often create additional problems and prevent real healing. Treatment addresses both the trauma and the coping behaviors, helping you develop healthier ways to manage difficult emotions. We understand these behaviors as symptoms of trauma, not moral failings, and work with compassion to help you heal.

Feeling Like You’re Fundamentally Different Now

After significant trauma, many people feel like they’re not the same person they were before. You might look at old photos and barely recognize yourself. Interests that once mattered feel meaningless. Your personality feels different. You might feel older than your years or like you lost your innocence. There’s often a sense of before and after, where life is divided into pre-trauma and post-trauma. This feeling of fundamental change is real, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. While you can’t undo what happened, healing allows you to integrate the experience and reclaim yourself. You might not return to exactly who you were before, but you can become a version of yourself who has survived, healed, and grown stronger through the process.

If several of these resonate, you’re not alone, and healing is possible.

Depression is one of the most common and treatable mental health conditions. You didn’t choose to feel this way, and you don’t have to face it alone. Treatment works, recovery is possible, and you deserve to feel better. Taking the first step toward therapy is a sign of strength and self-care.

70% of adults

have experienced at least one traumatic event. You’re not alone, and your reactions to what happened are normal responses to abnormal experiences.

Evidence-based

EMDR is recognized by the WHO and APA as highly effective trauma treatment. Specialized approaches help your brain properly process what happened.

3-6 sessions for relief

Research shows many people with single-incident trauma experience significant symptom reduction within just a few EMDR sessions. Complex trauma takes longer but improvement often begins early.

Understanding How Trauma Affects You

When something overwhelming happens, your brain and body go into survival mode. Trauma is your emotional and psychological response to an event that overwhelms your ability to cope. This is adaptive and protective in the moment. The problem is that sometimes your system gets stuck there, continuing to react as if the danger is current even when you’re objectively safe now. This isn’t weakness or a character flaw. It’s how brains work when exposed to experiences that overwhelm normal coping mechanisms.

While everyone experiences stress, a traumatic event involves actual or threatened harm that creates terror and helplessness. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD or posttraumatic stress disorder) develops when trauma responses don’t resolve naturally. The types of trauma vary from single incidents to ongoing trauma like childhood abuse.

What makes an experience traumatic isn’t just the objective event but how it affected you. Most people have experienced at least one trauma in their lifetime, and trauma on individuals and communities is more common than many realize.

When you experience trauma, your brain responds in ways designed to help you survive. Traumatic memories get stored differently than regular memories. Instead of being processed and filed away as “something that happened in the past,” they remain vivid and present. Your brain couldn’t fully process what happened in the moment, so the memory stays stuck in a raw, unprocessed state.

Your brain essentially gets stuck in survival mode, continuing to perceive danger even when safe. This is why flashbacks feel like you’re experiencing it now rather than remembering something from the past. It’s also why reminders can trigger such intense reactions. Your nervous system is responding as if the threat is current.

How Trauma Affects the Brain

Trauma literally changes your brain structure and function. The amygdala becomes overactive, the hippocampus may shrink, and the prefrontal cortex shows decreased function.

These changes explain why you might have intense reactions to triggers, difficulty distinguishing past from present, and trouble controlling emotions. These aren’t personality flaws; they’re biological trauma-related changes.

The good news is that effective trauma treatment creates measurable brain changes, restoring healthier patterns through neuroplasticity.

Trauma to PTSD icon person showing brain with thundercloud and broken chain

When Trauma Becomes PTSD

Most people who experienced trauma don’t develop PTSD; many recover naturally with support. PTSD develops when symptoms persist beyond three months and significantly impair functioning.

Not everyone with trauma symptoms has PTSD, and that’s okay. Whether you meet full criteria or have trauma-related mental health issues, evidence-based trauma therapy can help.

The benefits of trauma therapy include reduced symptoms, improved relationships, and freedom from trauma’s grip on your life.

Complex vs. Single-Event Trauma

Mental health professionals distinguish between different trauma patterns. Acute trauma results from a single traumatic event like an accident.

Complex trauma involves repeated experiences like childhood abuse that affect development. Each requires different therapeutic approaches.

Treating trauma comprehensively means addressing both the trauma experiences themselves and their ripple effects on your identity, relationships, and functioning.

The good news is that your brain is capable of processing these memories properly even years later. Specialized treatments like EMDR help your brain complete the processing it couldn’t do originally. This doesn’t erase what happened, but it changes how the memory is stored.

Trauma therapy helps you process the trauma so your brain can finally recognize that the danger has passed, allowing you to heal from trauma and move forward with your life. Once properly processed, the memory becomes less vivid, less emotionally charged, and clearly filed as “past” rather than “present danger.” This is how healing happens, and it’s why people who have lived with symptoms for decades can experience significant relief through appropriate treatment.

Past trauma affects everyone differently based on countless factors including the type of trauma, whether it was a single event or ongoing, your age when it happened, available support, and individual resilience. Some people develop PTSD while others don’t, and this doesn’t reflect strength or weakness. Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable as trauma can disrupt development. Understanding your unique trauma experience helps identify which treatments for trauma will be most effective for you and supports the therapy process toward healing.

Process Traumatic Memories

Help your brain complete the processing it couldn’t do originally, reducing flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive thoughts so memories feel safely in the past.

Reclaim Your Life

Gradually face what you’ve been avoiding and expand your world again, building confidence and freedom as you go at your own pace.

How Trauma Therapy Helps You Heal

Trauma therapy uses specialized approaches like EMDR to help your brain properly process what happened so memories feel clearly in the past rather than constantly present. We work at your pace, building safety and coping skills before processing begins. You’re never forced to share every detail or relive experiences. Treatment addresses both the psychological and physical impacts of trauma, helping you calm your nervous system, challenge distorted beliefs, and reclaim parts of life you’ve been avoiding. Healing is possible regardless of how long you’ve been struggling.

Calm Your Nervous System

Learn grounding techniques and regulation skills to manage hypervigilance, reduce constant anxiety, and finally feel safe in your body again.

Build Lasting Resilience

Develop emotional regulation, stronger sense of self, and self-compassion that serve you long after therapy ends, creating post-traumatic growth.

How Trauma Therapy Can Help You Heal

Evidence-based trauma-focused therapy provides powerful tools to help with trauma, offering hope and healing for trauma survivors.

EMDR Therapy for Trauma

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a specialized therapy technique that helps you reprocess traumatic memories. EMDR therapy involves using bilateral eye movement while focusing briefly on trauma.

This process helps your brain reprocess traumatic memories so they become less distressing. EMDR therapy consists of eight phases and doesn’t require detailed verbal discussion of trauma.

EMDR sessions help trauma survivors achieve significant relief, often more quickly than traditional talking therapies. Research shows EMDR helps process traumatic memories effectively for PTSD and other trauma-related conditions.

Learn More About EMDR

Safety and Stabilization

Before processing traumatic memories, trauma-informed care emphasizes establishing safety. Therapy involves learning emotion regulation skills, grounding techniques, and building healthy coping strategies.

This foundation ensures you have resources to manage difficult feelings that arise. Trauma informed therapy emphasizes that you’re always in control of the pace. This phase of therapy provides essential skills that support all subsequent trauma treatment.

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy combines cognitive therapy with trauma-sensitive interventions. This type of therapy, also called trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, helps you identify and challenge trauma-related beliefs, develop coping skills, and gradually process trauma through controlled exposure therapy.

The therapy technique addresses both thought patterns and behaviors affected by trauma. This approach is particularly effective for children and adolescents but benefits adults as well. Cognitive-behavioral therapy provides structured treatment for ptsd with proven effectiveness.

Comprehensive Trauma Treatment

Effective therapy addresses trauma’s ripple effects beyond just symptoms. Therapy focuses on relationship patterns, addressing shame and self-blame, rebuilding identity, and reconnecting with meaningful activities.

The therapy emphasizes building the life you want beyond just reducing distress. Forms of therapy may include elements of dialectical behavior therapy for emotion regulation or interpersonal therapy for relationships. Therapy addresses the widespread impact of trauma on your entire life.

Our Trauma-Informed Care Approach

At Relationship Counseling Center of California, we provide specialized trauma treatment using evidence-based methods tailored to your unique needs.

Comprehensive Trauma-Informed Care

Our entire practice operates from a trauma-informed approach. Trauma-informed therapy emphasizes safety, choice, collaboration, and empowerment. We understand how trauma on individuals creates lasting impacts and organize services to promote healing. This approach shapes everything from scheduling to how we conduct therapy. Trauma-informed care recognizes your strengths while providing support for healing. We never pressure you to discuss what you’re not ready to share.

Multiple Evidence-Based Treatments

We’re trained in various forms of therapy for trauma including EMDR therapy, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and other specialized approaches. Different types of therapy work for different people and types of trauma. We match treatment to your specific needs rather than using one approach for everyone. The therapy technique we use is always transparent and based on research about what helps trauma survivors heal.

Individualized Treatment Plans

Every trauma experience is unique, requiring personalized trauma-informed treatment. We assess your trauma history, current symptoms, strengths, and goals to create an individualized plan. Therapy may involve working on one traumatic event or addressing patterns across multiple trauma experiences. We regularly review progress and adjust our approach. The therapy process is collaborative; you’re always an active participant in treatment decisions about your healing journey.

Addressing Co-Occurring Conditions

Trauma rarely exists alone. Many trauma survivors also struggle with mental health problems like depression, anxiety, personality disorders, or substance use. Some conditions developed as trauma-related coping mechanisms. We assess for co-occurring mental health conditions and address them as part of comprehensive trauma treatment. We may coordinate with other mental health professionals when needed. Community mental health factors are considered in your overall care.

Specialized Support for Complex Trauma

Complex trauma requires specialized approaches addressing both traumatic memories and developmental impacts. We provide trauma treatment adapted for children and adolescents as well as adults carrying childhood trauma. The therapy involves building capacities that may not have developed earlier due to trauma experiences. We understand the unique challenges faced by trauma survivors with complex histories and provide appropriate support.

Long-Term Healing and Integration

Our goal is lasting healing, not just symptom relief. As therapy progresses, we focus on maintaining gains, building resilience, and supporting your continued growth beyond trauma recovery. The therapy provides skills for lifelong wellness. Many people benefit from occasional support group involvement or maintenance sessions after intensive treatment. We help you build a life where trauma is part of your history but doesn’t define your future.

Who Benefits from Trauma Therapy and Help with Painful Life Experiences

Trauma therapy helps anyone whose life has been affected by trauma and painful experiences, whether recent or from the past.

Anyone seeking to heal from a painful experience and move forward

Survivors of accidents, disasters, or medical trauma

People with trauma-related depression or anxiety

Those experiencing intergenerational trauma effects

Individuals with relationship problems from past trauma

People who haven’t responded to other therapy approaches

Anyone with PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder

Survivors of childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect

People who experienced assault or violence

Veterans and first responders with trauma exposure

Those struggling with traumatic memories and flashbacks

Anyone affected by complex trauma or ongoing trauma

Not sure if this is right for you?

That’s completely normal.

Schedule a

free consultation

to talk through your specific situation with one of our therapists.

When to Seek Trauma Therapy

You don’t need a formal diagnosis to benefit from trauma therapy. Consider seeking help if you have intrusive memories or flashbacks about traumatic events, avoid reminders of trauma, feel constantly on edge or hypervigilant, struggle with trust or relationships due to past trauma, or find that trauma continues affecting your present life. There’s no timeline for when you “should” be over trauma.

Whether trauma happened recently or decades ago, if it’s affecting you now, you deserve support. Trauma therapy can help even if you’ve lived with symptoms for years. The benefits of trauma therapy include reduced symptoms, improved relationships, better mental health outcomes, and freedom to live fully. You don’t have to carry this burden alone.

Talk to a Therapist

What to Expect: The Trauma Therapy Process

Understanding how trauma therapy works can reduce anxiety about beginning treatment.

Step 1: Free Consultation (10 minutes)

Your healing journey begins with a free consultation to discuss your trauma concerns. You’re not required to share traumatic event details during this call. We’ll explain our trauma-informed approach, how EMDR therapy works, and answer your questions. This helps us determine if we’re a good fit. Many people feel relief just from speaking with a trauma therapist who understands and offers hope.

Step 2: Assessment and Safety Planning

Early sessions focus on assessment and establishing safety. We’ll discuss your trauma history only to the extent comfortable, assess current symptoms, and teach you about trauma responses. You’ll learn coping skills before addressing traumatic memories directly. We collaboratively develop a treatment plan outlining goals and approaches. This foundation-building creates the safety needed for healing.

Step 3: Processing Traumatic Memories

Once you have adequate skills and feel ready, we begin working with traumatic memories. The specific approach depends on which type of therapy we use. With EMDR, you’ll briefly focus on trauma while following eye movements. With trauma-focused approaches, you might create a narrative or gradually confront avoided situations. Therapy may include homework between sessions. This processing phase helps trauma lose its power over you.

Step 4: Integration and Building Forward

As core traumatic memories are processed, therapy broadens to address trauma’s broader impacts. We work on relationships, addressing shame, rebuilding identity, and reconnecting with meaningful activities. The focus shifts from reducing symptoms to actively building the life you want. You practice using new skills in daily life. Many people describe reclaiming themselves during this phase.

Step 5: Maintaining Gains and Moving Forward

As therapy approaches completion, we focus on maintaining progress and preparing for independence. We review skills, address remaining issues, identify potential triggers, and develop strategies for future stressors. Sessions gradually space out to ensure you maintain gains independently. You’ll have confidence in your ability to handle challenges and knowledge that you can return if needed.

Timeline and Duration:
How Long Does Trauma Treatment Take?

Treatment length varies based on trauma type (single event vs. complex trauma), symptom severity, co-occurring conditions, and your goals.

Research shows treatment for PTSD from single events might take 12-20 sessions. Complex trauma typically requires longer therapy. EMDR can produce relatively rapid relief for some, though comprehensive healing takes time.

What matters most is meaningful progress toward healing. The investment in trauma therapy pays dividends in freedom from symptoms that may have controlled your life for years. Healing takes time, and you’re worth it.

Therapists Who Specialize in Therapy for Trauma

Common Questions About Trauma Therapy

What if I’m not sure it was “bad enough” to be trauma?

This is one of the most common concerns, and it often reflects the self-doubt and minimization that trauma creates. Here’s what matters: if an experience overwhelmed your ability to cope and continues affecting your life negatively, it deserves attention regardless of whether others would consider it traumatic. You don’t need to compare your experience to others’ or meet some threshold of “bad enough.” The impact on you is what matters. Many people with significant trauma symptoms minimize their experiences or feel they don’t deserve help because “others have it worse.” This is often part of the trauma itself, creating beliefs that your pain doesn’t matter. If you’re experiencing symptoms and struggling, you deserve support.

Will I ever be the same as before it happened?

This is a profound question many trauma survivors grapple with. The honest answer is that you probably won’t be exactly the same as before, but this doesn’t have to be negative. You can’t undo what happened or completely erase its impact. However, healing allows you to integrate the experience rather than being controlled by it. Many people report that while they wouldn’t choose what happened, they’ve grown in ways they value through the healing process. They’re more compassionate, more aware, stronger in ways they weren’t before. You might not return to the person you were before the trauma, but you can become a version of yourself who has survived, healed, and grown through adversity. For many people, this is ultimately more meaningful than simply returning to who they were.

Do I have to talk about every detail of what happened?

No. While some processing requires discussing the traumatic event, you’re never required to share every detail. With EMDR, you can often process memories without extensive verbalization. You can say “the incident” or “what happened” without going into graphic detail. The important part is processing the emotional and sensory components, not necessarily narrating the entire story. You control what you share and when. Some people choose to share more detail over time as they build trust and feel safer, but it’s never required for healing to occur.

What if remembering makes it worse?

This is a common and understandable concern. The fear is that processing will retraumatize you or make symptoms worse. Actually, proper trauma processing is quite different from just remembering or talking about what happened. We use specific techniques designed to help your brain reprocess the memory while you remain grounded in the present. It’s normal to feel some distress during processing, but we continuously monitor your distress level and use interventions to keep it manageable. Many people are surprised that processing is less overwhelming than they feared. And while you might feel temporarily worse as we work through material, this is usually followed by significant relief as the memory becomes properly filed away as “past.”

What is EMDR and how does it work?

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based treatment specifically designed for trauma. During EMDR, you focus on a traumatic memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation, typically through following my fingers with your eyes back and forth. This bilateral stimulation seems to help your brain process the stuck memory similarly to how it processes information during REM sleep. EMDR doesn’t erase memories but changes how they’re stored, reducing their emotional charge and helping them feel clearly in the past. Many people find EMDR faster and less distressing than traditional talk therapy for trauma. It’s been extensively researched and is recommended by the World Health Organization for trauma treatment. Learn more about EMDR here.

How long will therapy take?

This varies significantly depending on several factors: the type of trauma (single incident vs. complex), severity and duration of symptoms, your support system and current life circumstances, whether you’re dealing with one traumatic event or multiple, and your goals for therapy. Some people see significant improvement in a few months, particularly with single-incident trauma treated with EMDR. Complex trauma often requires longer-term work, sometimes a year or more. Rather than focusing on a specific timeline, we’ll focus on progress. You’ll likely notice improvements fairly quickly even if complete resolution takes longer. We’ll regularly assess progress and adjust treatment as needed.

What if I can’t remember parts of what happened?

Memory gaps are extremely common with trauma. Your brain might have been too overwhelmed to form complete memories, or you might have dissociated during the event. You might remember fragments, sensations, or emotions without a clear narrative. This doesn’t prevent healing. We can work with whatever memories or fragments you do have. Sometimes more details emerge during processing, but this isn’t necessary for successful treatment. What’s most important is addressing the impact of what happened and the symptoms you’re experiencing now. You don’t need complete memories to heal from trauma.

Can I really heal from something that happened years ago?

Absolutely yes. It doesn’t matter if the trauma happened decades ago. Your brain is capable of processing these memories now even if it couldn’t at the time. In fact, many people seek treatment years after the traumatic event, often because they weren’t ready before or didn’t have access to appropriate help. Age of the trauma doesn’t determine whether treatment will be effective. The most important factors are your willingness to engage in treatment now and working with a therapist trained in trauma-specific approaches. Many people who have lived with symptoms for decades experience profound relief through trauma treatment.

What if I’m dealing with multiple traumas?

Many people have experienced multiple traumatic events, particularly if trauma started in childhood or if you’ve been in dangerous situations repeatedly. We can address this. The approach might be different than working with a single incident. We might need to work on stabilization and building coping skills first before processing specific memories. We might process events chronologically, starting with the earliest, or we might address whatever feels most pressing. Sometimes processing one memory helps resolve symptoms from others because similar themes or beliefs were present. Complex trauma requires patience and often longer-term work, but healing is absolutely possible. We’ll create a treatment plan that addresses all aspects of your experience.

Do you accept insurance, or what are the costs?

We understand that the cost of therapy is an important consideration. We accept most major insurance companies. You can check to see if we accept your insurance here. Many insurance plans do cover therapy. We also accept cash payments for clients who do not have or do not want to use insurance.

You Don’t Have to Carry This Alone

What happened to you matters. Your pain is valid. And healing is possible. You’ve survived the trauma itself. Now you deserve support to truly thrive, not just survive. Specialized trauma treatment can help you process what happened, reduce symptoms, and reclaim the life you deserve. You don’t have to live controlled by the past.

Your first step is simple: schedule a free consultation. We’ll discuss what you’ve been through (only what you’re comfortable sharing), explain how trauma treatment works, and determine if our approach feels right for you. This conversation is confidential, compassionate, and free from pressure. You deserve to heal, and we’re here to help you do exactly that.

You survived. Now you deserve to heal.

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