Trauma Therapy in Soquel, CA
Is It Time To Seek Support?
Do you experience strong feelings or reactions that seem to come out of nowhere?
Is it easy for you to become triggered, stressed out, or overwhelmed?
Are there certain patterns or cycles that you keep falling into even though you’d like to respond differently?
So many of my clients come to therapy with the feeling that they’re living in survival mode. Despite being high-functioning and appearing “together” on the outside, they’re often dysregulated and disconnected on the inside—yet they don’t know why. They just know that they have been living in a state of fight-or-flight for weeks, months, or, in some cases, years.
If this sounds familiar to you, then you probably wish your stress response was different. Instead of making you feel better, the patterns you’ve formed may have started to negatively affect your emotions, mental health, and relationships. Often, these patterns take the form of anxiety, depression, and relational issues that have roots going deeper than what you might see at the surface.
You don’t need to have all the answers in order to benefit from therapy—you just need to recognize that something feels off. By working together in the counseling space, we can explore your feelings, where they come from, and what you need to move from surviving mode to thriving mode.
Contact
A Traumatic Experience May Be At The Core Of Your Discomfort
Our society can be a little afraid of the word “trauma.” Instead of acknowledging the ways in which adverse experiences impact our sense of self and security, we are often told that we just have to push through and achieve success at all costs.
For high achievers and other individuals who don’t identify their experiences as “that bad,” the added pressure of keeping it all together for everyone else’s benefit tends to intensify feelings of anger, anxiety, insecurity, and low self-worth. And when there are identity-related stressors involved—particularly impacting LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities—trauma can be even more insidious.
It may not even seem as though your distress and discomfort stem from a specific experience; you just feel on-edge and triggered almost instantly upon entering certain settings or being around certain people. Somewhere deep in your brain, alarm bells are constantly ringing, and before you even know it, you are caught up in a stress response that keeps you stuck in the trauma cycle. Because of this, shame has become deeply ingrained in your nervous system.
You are not alone in this struggle, and in fact, trauma takes many shapes and sizes, impacting people from every demographic. Let’s work together in counseling to better understand your trauma and what it needs to heal.
My Therapy Practice Specializes In Trauma
As a trauma-informed therapist, I work with clients to identify the core issues fueling symptoms. I’m less interested in the narrative of what happened in the past than what we can do to temper symptoms in the present. Through the therapy process, we will collaborate on creating a complete picture of your trauma so that meaningful, lasting healing can take place.
My Approach
While treatment is individualized to each client’s unique needs and goals for counseling, I tend to draw from two highly effective, trauma-informed approaches that are gentle and greatly reduce the risk of re-traumatization.
● Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a particularly effective, noninvasive form of therapy that uses eye movement to help neutralize trauma at the source. A therapist using EMDR will guide clients through the phases of treatment, combining trauma-informed somatic (body-based) cues with verbal processing and talk therapy.
● Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment is a branch of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy that acknowledges the ways in which traumatic or distressing experiences splinter the Self. Because some of these parts don’t understand that the body is now out of danger, this form of trauma treatment focuses on re-integrating fractured parts into a whole, healed Self.
There are also other conventional treatment methods—including Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)—that may be incorporated based on your unique experience of trauma.
I know you are feeling dysregulated and overwhelmed, but I want to assure you that healing is possible even if it feels too far out of reach right now. With the support you gain through counseling, you will not only learn why symptoms are occurring but also how to resolve the ongoing patterns keeping you stuck. I will walk with you every step of the way through this process, helping you create a life in which you feel capable, healed, and whole.
Common Concerns About Therapy For Trauma…
-
This is a completely understandable concern about trauma work, especially if you are new to therapy. That said, I can assure you that this process will move at a pace that feels safe and comfortable.
We don’t need to focus on or retell the story of what happened to you—we just need to understand how that experience is impacting you today. Using my present-focused, trauma-informed approach, I aim to make this process feel as gentle, effective, and collaborative as possible.
-
While I have extensive experience working with trauma of all kinds, I recognize that your experiences are deeply personal and unique to you. I know that even if two people experience the same trauma, their emotional responses may drastically differ.
Because aspects of my practice are geared toward LGBTQ+ clients, in particular, I aim to operate my practice with the utmost empathy and cultural competence. I feel very confident in my ability to treat traumas of all kinds, and I promise to handle anything you bring to the counseling space with understanding, respect, and the acknowledgement that you are ultimately the expert on your life.
-
I am so sorry to hear that you didn’t experience positive outcomes in therapy in the past; it can feel very invalidating to go through this process with a therapist who can’t help or, worse, makes you feel judged and misunderstood.
When working through trauma, it’s extremely important to work with therapists who are trauma-trained and informed. The methods I use in therapy—including EMDR and Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment—are specifically designed to reduce the impact of trauma and risk of re-traumatization. Plus, I will work closely with you at the outset of therapy to find out about what has and has not worked for you in the past so I can individualize this process as much as possible.
It's Not You—It’s Trauma
If you’re feeling dysregulated, overwhelmed, stuck in unhealthy cycles, or simply just “off,” my therapy practice specializes in trauma of all kinds. Start your healing journey today by contacting me to get scheduled for an intake.
Recent Posts
