Trauma Therapy
Trauma is not only one event. It is often everything that kept happening.
Trauma and PTSD are my primary clinical specialty. Seventeen years of this work, in person in San Diego and online across California.
What Trauma Includes
If you have been quietly ruling yourself out, this may be worth a look.
People often decide their experience does not qualify because it does not resemble what they have seen on television. What matters clinically is the imprint it left, not how dramatic it looks from outside.
Repeated stress
Years of pressure with no room to recover, caregiving, a punishing job, an unstable home.
Painful relationships
Being controlled, criticized or destabilized by someone whose approval you needed.
Childhood experience
What happened, and equally what never happened: attunement, protection, being believed.
Emotional neglect
A home where needs were inconvenient, so you learned not to have any.
Loss
Grief that arrived without room to grieve, or losses nobody around you counted as losses.
Betrayal
Trust broken by someone central, and the reorganization of self that follows.
Feeling unsafe
Living braced for the next thing, long after the next thing stopped coming.
Feeling unseen
Being known for what you produce rather than who you are.
How It Shows Up Later
Not as memory. As reaction, the disproportionate flare, the shutdown mid-argument, the certainty that you are about to be left.
- Startling easily, or feeling braced without a reason
- Going numb or blank when things get tense
- Difficulty trusting, or trusting too fast and too completely
- Sleep that never fully lets go
- Harsh self-criticism that sounds like someone else's voice
- Managing everyone's mood before your own
The Approach
Three phases, in this order, always
Trauma work done too fast is trauma work done badly. Stability comes first, every time.
I draw on EMDR, IFS-informed parts work, DBT skills, and attachment-focused therapy. Which one we lean on depends entirely on you.
More on EMDR specificallyHistory, current supports, and the regulation skills that make deeper work possible. Nothing is forced open early.
Inside the Work
What actually happens in the room
Open each card. Knowing the structure ahead of time is part of what makes it possible to begin.
Stabilizing firstBefore we approach anything hard, you need reliable ways to come back down.Read MoreClose
Grounding, orienting, breath and body work, plus a clear plan for the hours after a heavy session. This phase is not filler, it is what makes the rest of the work safe to do.
Approaching the materialIn pieces, at a pace you set, with the exit always visible.Read MoreClose
Depending on fit, this may be EMDR reprocessing, IFS-informed parts work, or attachment-focused exploration. We check in constantly on how much is enough for one day.
IntegrationWhat changes is often quiet: the reaction that no longer arrives.Read MoreClose
We track the shift into daily life, sleep, startle, how you handle conflict, what you can now say out loud. Old material tends to lose its grip gradually rather than all at once.
Questions
What people ask before starting
I don't make any guarantees about how this will go. I can tell you that the pacing is yours and that nothing gets forced.
Nothing dramatic happened to me. Does it still count?
Yes. Much of what I treat is not a single event, it is years of low-grade stress, emotional neglect, or being unseen in a home that looked fine from outside. The nervous system responds to accumulation, not only to headlines.
Will I have to describe everything in detail?
No. You control what you say and when. Some approaches, EMDR among them, do not require you to narrate the memory at all. We agree on how we approach the material before we approach it.
What if I get overwhelmed in session?
We prepare for that before it happens. Building regulation and grounding skills comes first, and we work in small, contained pieces with time at the end to settle before you walk out.
Can I do trauma work over telehealth?
Often, yes, including EMDR. We would discuss your situation and support system on the consult and decide together whether in person is a better starting point.
Is this the same as anxiety therapy?
They overlap heavily. Many people arrive for anxiety and discover that trauma is what is generating it. Starting on one page does not lock you into it.
Free 15-Minute Consult
Starting is the hardest part of trauma work.
A free 15-minute call, no detail required. You can describe as little as you want and still get a clear sense of how I would work with you.
In person in San Diego, and by telehealth across California.