Trauma counseling
For the exhausted, self-doubting survivors of relational and religious abuse
As a child, you were taught that being needed was the same as being wanted.
Instead of being able to depend on your authority figures, you jumped in to mediate their arguments, lightened the mood when they got overwhelmed, and learned to stay quiet about your needs to not cause more drama. You had to protect yourself from constant emotional, verbal, or physical threat while trying to navigate all the stages of being a kid.
The religious circle you ran in taught you to view your instincts as evil, your body as shameful, and your ability to think critically as dangerous. When your intuition questioned the expectations placed on you by authority figures, you were treated with disdain and the threat of rejection. You opted for blind obedience to maintain the only community you knew and hid your anxiety and confusion behind acts of service.
You’re an adult now who wonders if your thoughts and feelings are real, why your flashbacks and nightmares come up when life is FINALLY going well, and what people mean when they say they feel “relaxed.” In relationships, you ask for attention and time and then feel angry or scared when it’s given. You put others first because you were taught it was right but the resentment you feel is beginning to strangle your fake smile.
There’s good news: if you had the innate capacity to adapt and survive a hostile environment, then you have the innate capacity to heal.
The fact that you struggle with symptoms of trauma means that your mind and emotions are desperate to integrate your past with your present. Rewiring your brain and befriending your body is what you are neurologically wired to do.
Collaborating with you to heal from childhood and religious abuse is an honor. As the client, you get to define what healing means to you and tell your story at the pace that feels right. As the therapist, I am trained to meet you with holistic and integrative approaches that respect your autonomy and help you live the life of your choosing with dignity.
Some of the ways I can help include teaching your nervous system how to identify the difference between what is past and what is present. Our bodies and brains stay in fight-or-flight long after a trauma is over, leading to emotional overwhelm, physical exhaustion, and mental fog. In session, we treat your physical sensations as helpful information about how your body wants to heal and we practice techniques to ground yourself in the present, leading to an increased sense of security and peace (Somatic Trauma Therapy).
As your body learns to regulate its threat response, you can explore the parts of your personality that adapted to the trauma you experienced. In recovery, we can assume that every part of you has been instrumental in your survival, and meeting those parts with curiosity has the capacity to heal toxic shame (Internal Family Systems Therapy).
If you are suffer from upsetting flashbacks or nightmares that disrupt your sleep, we can explore using EMDR to help you move forward. This approach uses bilateral stimulation to reduce emotional distress and reprocess negative belief systems attached to traumatic memories.
FAQs
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The amount of healing you can experience is boundless; it just depends on your willingness to undergo the process. Some questions I encourage clients to ask themselves if they are on the fence include: “what are the risks of trying something new?”, “how open am I to change?” and “what I can tolerate more of: the pain I’m in now or the discomfort of trying something different?”
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This is so valid. While a lot of clients feel pressure to go over their entire history at the start of treatment, it’s not necessary. Therapy is a process and we will work together at the beginning of treatment to clarify your goals and determine a productive starting point. Additionally, I trust that you will tell me about your history as you are ready. As the owner of your story, YOU are in charge of what you share and when and I follow your lead in the pace of our sessions.
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The process of therapy inevitably brings up discomfort at times, but my approach to trauma recovery does NOT center around having to relive distressing memories (in fact, we actively avoid that as it is not necessary for healing!). Certain treatments like EMDR do require bringing up unpleasant memories, but it is done in a regulated way that is designed to increase healthy processing instead of reliving. In short, you are NEVER forced to talk about anything you don’t want to and it is my job to be with you in any discomfort you experience and help you learn how to regulate.
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) uses alternating eye, body, or audio movement to engage both sides of your brain (this is called bilateral stimulation). Fight-or-flight responses impair your brain's ability to process trauma as it is happening, so bilateral stimulation enables your mind do what it couldn’t in the moment of shock and distress: communicate across left and right hemispheres. In an EMDR session, bilateral movements are done in tandem with focusing on a traumatic memory and the negative belief associated with it. Benefits of EMDR therapy include being able to process both a memory and the thoughts/feelings you have about it at the same time, leading to decreased emotional distress and healthier belief systems.
I utilize an attachment approach to EMDR, which means we can tailor processing around experiences that affected your ability to relate to self and others in a healthy way. This allows you to rewire relational patterns and begin to connect to self and loved ones with more peace, joy, and security.