Trauma Therapy

While talk therapy can help make sense of trauma and understand triggers, we believe in a more integrative approach – healing from the inside out. This approach addresses:

• The body

• Emotional understanding

• Meaning-making

• Memory reconsolidation

Our Approach to Trauma Recovery

Our therapists are trained in a variety of trauma modalities and often integrate the following in our work:

• Somatic Experiencing (SE) – a body-based approach to understanding and releasing trauma.

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) – a parts-based approach to emotional processing and meaning-making.

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) – a modality for reprocessing memories that remain stuck due to trauma.

Before engaging in deeper work, we focus on creating a safe, supportive space. Trauma can make the world feel unsafe, and safety is experienced in the nervous system. Our therapists bring their own attuned presence to help cultivate this sense of safety, creating a foundation for healing.

Healing trauma is hard, but even establishing a felt sense of safety is powerful work. We move together at a pace that meets your goals, helping you process your experiences fully and intentionally.

Understanding Trauma

Trauma is more than an event – it’s the body’s and brain’s reaction to a threat. Whether experienced firsthand or secondhand, trauma happens when life, mind, or body is threatened. Often, the physiological responses meant to protect us – fight, flight, freeze, or fawn – cause memories to become “stuck.” This can result in ongoing symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or PTSD, even from events that might not seem traditionally traumatic.

Many of us grow up believing these reactions are a flaw in ourselves. The truth is trauma can be healed, and understanding how your body and brain processed the event is the first step toward recovery.

Modalities for Trauma Treatment

• Somatic Experiencing (SE)
  SE focuses on the body’s innate ability to heal. By noticing sensations, impulses, and behaviors, we help complete the nervous system’s response to trauma, allowing it to move and release rather than remain stuck. SE recognizes that not all trauma can be expressed in words – sometimes healing must happen through the body.

• Internal Family Systems (IFS)
  IFS views the mind as made up of parts, each with roles, emotions, and protective functions. These parts may be anxious, depressive, people-pleasing, or represent younger versions of yourself. By exploring and unburdening these parts, we cultivate compassion and create space for your “self energy” – a centered, regulated place from which healing can unfold.

• EMDR (Memory Reconsolidation)
  EMDR reprocesses traumatic memories that remain fragmented in the brain and body. Through guided bilateral stimulation, memories are integrated and no longer trigger distress in the present, allowing emotions, body sensations, and explicit recollections to settle in a safe and organized way.

Intensive Trauma Work

Some trauma work requires deeper, more frequent sessions. Intensive therapy –meeting 2-3 times per week – allows you to access and process deeply held trauma while maintaining containment and support between sessions. This approach often accelerates healing and creates profound shifts in a shorter period of time.

In intensive work, we combine IFS, SE, and EMDR to access and process trauma in a deliberate, supportive way. Once you feel stabilized, sessions typically transition to a weekly schedule to continue your healing journey.