Trauma and Complex Trauma

Somatic therapy, including EMDR and brainspotting can help any condition with a known cause. If you find yourself struggling with nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, avoidance or find yourself repeating behavioral patterns with limited to no relief, you may benefit from trauma therapy.

Many people state that they feel worse when starting therapy, when actually they are allowing themselves to feel more. Therapy is hard work and requires effort. Through a compassionate, attuned presence and ensuring that I am working at a pace right for you, I am committed to helping you ease into difficult sensations, feelings, and beliefs to build resilience and self trust.

No, this is not advised. Somatic Experiencing Practitioners and EMDR clinicians are trained to be experts on and the guardians of the nervous system. In other words, skilled clinicians check your physiological responses (breathing rates, pupil constrictions, flushing, etc)  to interventions to avoid retraumatization or reliving past experiences in any way.

If you find yourself intellectualizing or over-analyzing, but still are struggling with nightmares, repeating unwanted cycles of behaviors, or feeling pervasive sadness, you may be relieved to learn that trauma therapy offers a different approach.

Although there are overlaps, trauma therapy is primarily a bottom up approach. Bottom up processing means I will encourage you to stay curious to the information your nervous system is giving you in the here and now. This involves being present with sensations, images, and feelings. This activity comes from the subcortical regions of the brain, whereas traditional talk therapy (top down processing)  typically focuses on prefrontal cortex activities including thinking about things differently, problem solving, and providing psychoeducation.

"The wound is the place where the light enters you." - Rumi

"Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness." - Peter Levine