The past doesn't have to keep living in your body.
Something happened, or many things happened, and some part of you has been bracing ever since. You may have told the story a hundred times, or never once out loud. Either way, your body seems to remember it in a language that words don't quite reach.
Trauma isn't only the event. It's what the event left behind, the way your shoulders climb toward your ears in a quiet room, the way a certain tone of voice drops you straight back into an old moment, the way sleep never feels fully safe. You might look, to everyone around you, like you've moved on.
What you're carrying isn't weakness, and it isn't something you should have gotten over by now. It's a nervous system that learned, for very good reasons, to stay ready for danger. Our work together is not about reliving the worst of it. It's about helping that system finally understand that the danger has passed.
How trauma keeps living in the present
Trauma has a way of collapsing time. A smell, a date on the calendar, a raised voice, and suddenly your body responds as though the old thing is happening again right now. This is what hypervigilance and flashbacks really are, not drama or overreaction, but a protective system firing on outdated information.
For some people it's the opposite of too much feeling. It's numbness, a flatness, a sense of watching your own life from behind glass. You go through the motions, you function, but something in you has gone quiet and far away. Numbing is not indifference. It's often the mind's oldest way of surviving what was too much to feel at the time.
It can show up as trouble sleeping, a startle you can't control, irritability that surprises even you, or a bone-deep exhaustion from staying on guard around the clock. However it lives in you, it has likely narrowed your world, the places you avoid, the closeness you keep at arm's length, the rest you can't quite let yourself have.
How I work with trauma
The first principle of trauma work is that we never move faster than your safety allows. Healing that re-traumatizes isn't healing. So we go at a pace you set, with your consent at every step, and nothing about the process asks you to relive the worst moments in order to prove they were real.
Drawing on psychodynamic and attachment work, I help you understand how what happened shaped the way you protect yourself now, and we work gently at the level of the body as well as the story, so relief reaches the places words alone can't. Because so much trauma happens inside relationships, the repair happens inside one too. A steady, trustworthy relationship is not a backdrop to this work. It's the mechanism.
Our practice holds real depth here. My partner clinician, Emma Crissman, LMFT, specializes in developmental trauma, the wounds that form early and quietly over time, which means we can meet trauma whether it arrived in a single moment or across a whole childhood. You will not be handed a protocol and rushed through it. You'll be met as a whole person, at the speed your system can trust.
What the work looks like together
We build safety first
Before we touch anything hard, we build the ground to stand on, steadiness in your body, tools to settle, and a relationship where you feel genuinely held. Nothing moves until this is real.
You stay in control
You decide what we approach and when. This work is consent-based at every turn, and we go only as fast as your nervous system can stay present. You will never be pushed back into the past to prove your pain.
We help the body update
Trauma lives in the body, so healing has to reach it there. Gently, and always within your window of tolerance, we help your system learn in a felt way that the threat is over and the present is safe.
You reclaim the present
The goal isn't just fewer symptoms. It's a life that belongs to you again, sleep that comes, closeness that feels safe, and a past that finally stays in the past.
This may be for you if…
- ✓Something from your past still runs your present, even if you've tried to move on
- ✓You want healing that is paced and gentle, never a forced reliving of the worst moments
- ✓You want to understand how what happened shaped you, not just manage the symptoms
- ✓You value a therapist who is warm, steady, and deeply attuned to safety
A different kind of support may fit better if…
- ·You're in immediate crisis or danger, or having thoughts of harming yourself. Please reach out to emergency services or a crisis line right now (in the US, call or text 988) and see our crisis resources for right-now support. Ongoing trauma work can begin once you are safe.
- ·You're looking strictly for medication management (a psychiatrist prescribes; as a psychologist I don't, though I'm glad to coordinate care)
Good things to know
Will trauma therapy make me relive what happened?
No. Good trauma work is paced and consent-based, and it does not require you to relive the worst moments to heal. We build safety and stability first, and we only approach the harder material at a speed your nervous system can tolerate, with you in control the whole way.
How long does trauma and PTSD therapy take?
It varies with the person and the nature of the trauma, whether it was a single event or something that unfolded over years. This is deeper work, so it tends to be a longer arc, but many clients feel steadier and more grounded well before the deepest layers are done. We'll talk openly about pacing and check on progress together.
Do you offer EMDR or a specific trauma protocol?
My work draws primarily on psychodynamic and attachment approaches, along with body-aware and relational methods, tailored to you rather than a single fixed protocol. In our first conversations we'll talk through what your situation calls for, and I'll always be honest about fit and refer where another approach would serve you better.
Is telehealth safe and effective for trauma work?
Yes. Many people actually feel safer doing trauma work from their own space, and research supports telehealth as effective for trauma and PTSD. All sessions are held over a secure, confidential platform, and we pace everything to keep you grounded and supported throughout.
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