Have you suffered a blow to your well-being that has made it difficult to find a sense of safety and possibility in your world? Do you often feel disengaged and detached, as though you’re just going through the motions?
Perhaps you’re tossing and turning at night, and your exhaustion is affecting your ability to come up with ideas at work or pursue your passions. Maybe you’re struggling to relate to others in a way that feels healthy and easy. It might be harder to spend time around people in general, whether you’re out running errands or sitting at home with those you love.
You may feel plagued by anxiety symptoms, such as racing worries and looping thoughts. You feel alone, unsure, and ashamed of what happened. Perhaps you find yourself chasing habits or repeating patterns that you recognize as unhealthy, but aren’t sure how to change or face head-on.
As time goes on, you might not be taking care of your physical and mental health. No matter how hard you try to find a sense of calm and engage with the world, you keep feeling pulled back into the pain of the past.
Whether you suffered a tragic loss, or don’t understand why you feel the way you do, there is hope of reclaiming a personal sense of comfort and peace. It is possible to feel relaxed again—to feel that life still has meaning.
Trauma and heartbreak are far more common than many realize. No matter what you’ve been through, if an event or experience shook your sense of safety in the world and stability within yourself, it makes sense that you are now struggling to feel present in your life.
There are big Traumas and little traumas, what we might call Big “T” and little “t”. A Big “T” trauma is any deeply distressing event that threatens your life and robs you of your sense of control. For example, violent combat during war or the experience of being assaulted, abused, or raped are all big “T”.
Little “t” traumas are those events and experience which are not necessarily life-threatening, but still cause intense personal distress. From going through divorce to getting picked last in gym class to feeling invisible to our parents, little “t” traumas can add up and start to affect daily functioning. And, it’s possible to continue blaming yourself for things that happened years ago, even as you move into adulthood.
All of these experiences can make cause deep distress, making you feel on edge, fearful, and unable to trust your perceptions. Jean-Paul Sartre called this discomfort “existential nausea.”
The pain can arise as a result of loss and disillusionment, whether it be from heartbreak, the loss of a loved one, or feelings of abandonment, isolation, or not being understood.
Sometimes, those feelings can stay within you, making you feel as though the danger or loss is still happening in the moment in front of you, threatening to upend your life once again.
If you’re feeling stuck, you’re not alone. And, no matter how far in the past this trauma might be, struggling in the present does not mean you are weak or flawed.
But you don’t have to keep feeling this way, and you don’t have to suffer in silence.
My objective as a psychotherapist is to help you find wholeness. Stepping into wholeness means embracing both the good and the bad parts of us, the simple and the complicated, the socially accepted and uncomfortable. When you are able to accept and integrate every part of who you are and everything you’ve experience, trauma, past and present, can no longer can control what you do.
It is my goal to provide a comfortable, nonjudgmental atmosphere for people recovering from a wide range of traumas. To help you find your wholeness, I utilize two main modalities. One is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
EMDR is the gold standard in trauma therapy. It has proven an effective and rapid method of reprocessing traumatic memories, helping to remove the negative emotions associated with those experiences. As a treatment for anxiety, panic, depression and symptoms of post-traumatic stress, the method has been backed by thousands of testimonials from clients and clinicians alike. I use EMDR to help you identify your painful memories and re-process them so they lose their charge. In these sessions, I will also help you understand what informs your decisions and how you relate to others, creating space for you to live your life with less anxiety and more hope.
I also take a Depth Psychology approach, drawing from Jungian Psychology. Depth-oriented sessions focus on safe, supportive conversations, during which we explore your past and present experiences so you can notice how your deepest self is speaking to you. We begin to listen to your deeper self through methods like dream analysis and creative exploration. This work can help you find wisdom in both your dreams and your fears.
Throughout sessions, I will help you work through the underlying problems at the base of your feelings, so you can feel empowered to positively change your actions. For example, you can stop acting impulsively when something brings up deep wells of anger and hurt. Instead, you can respond to what’s happening in the moment. Whatever it is you’re going through, you can find a way to handle it gracefully and authentically.
I have been practicing trauma and heartbreak therapy for nine years. I’ve lived long enough to experience many of the traumatic events, Big “T” or little “t”, that so many people go through. I know that it’s possible to tap into your innate resilience and find forgiveness and compassion for your whole self.
Together, EMDR therapy and psychoanalysis can help you make sense of what you’ve been through and step confidently toward what lies ahead. You can genuinely become who you’re meant to be.
I’m afraid trauma therapy will change me and bring disruption to my life.
Change can be hard, and it certainly takes courage. But, working toward self-acceptance, confidence, and wholeness can offer enormous benefits in every area of your life. And yes, your life will likely shift as you do this work, but our goal is to make sure these changes serve you.
I’m afraid I can’t spare my hard-earned money for therapy.
I always say that therapy is worth an initial investment of 4-6 sessions. In this time, you can get a feel for how I work and assess whether or not trauma treatment seems to be helping you.
I also encourage you to remember that, no matter how hard it might be to believe right now, you are worthy of help and hope. There is a priceless value in being able to pursue the life you want to live.
Why do I need to go to therapy? I can handle whatever I’m going through on my own.
There can be cultural blocks to pursuing therapy, from religion to long-held personal beliefs—don’t go to strangers and spill all, so to speak. If we really want to make changes, we need to go outside of the boundaries that others have created for us (or that we’ve created for ourselves). Obviously, something isn’t working for you at this point, or you wouldn’t be at this page. A therapist can help you understand and address whatever it is that’s keeping you stuck.
If you’re still doubting that therapy works, please feel free to check out the following links. Both EMDR therapy and Jungian Psychotherapy are evidence-based practices, and I believe they are very important in helping people process trauma.