INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
Weave together a new story for your life.
Serving Santa Monica and greater Los Angeles. Online therapy offered to California residents.
Trauma untethers us from our community and ourselves.
COMMON MYTH: If I don’t think or talk about my trauma, it’ll eventually go away.
TRUTH: It is natural to instinctively avoid or hide from trauma, but that worsens the symptoms and makes them last longer.
Trauma-informed and competent therapy can helps your recovery by providing you with a space to feel validated and supported in the terrifying aftermath of trauma.
The most important thing trauma survivors need for recovery is a supportive space to process experiences. You might:
Have difficulty knowing what you can share with others because most people seem overwhelmed when you share your experience.
Only tell parts of your story because you are unsure that others can handle the truth.
Feel ashamed that the trauma even happened to you worry that you somehow caused it.
Feel negative or hopeless about most areas of your life and that just isn’t like you.
Try to control your feelings but still experience chronic distress.
Be overwhelmed when hanging out with your friends and family.
Dissociate and feel foggy in most areas of your life.
Become overwhelmed with how to feel “normal” again.
Worry that you are “too broken” to be in healthy relationships again.
Untangle the complicated feelings after trauma and weave together a new story for your life.
Trauma can feel like:
Loneliness when trying to process your traumatic experience.
Worry about how your friends and family will react to your story.
Guilt and shame that prevent you from getting the support you need.
Shock at the negative and intrusive thoughts that come up in a day.
Being easily scared or frightened by seemingly benign events.
Or you might feel:
Anxious when hanging out with people that don’t know your story.
Overwhelmed with dread when traumatic memories are triggered.
Rumination over the events before and after the traumatic event.
Complete denial or poor memory around the traumatic event
Frightening and surprising negative thoughts.
Increasing fear that another trauma will happen to you in the future.
Trauma disrupts everything in our lives, and most trauma survivors have symptoms of depression, anxiety, distress in their relationships, and poor self-esteem. Some survivors even experience a significant and upsetting combination of symptoms.
In America, it's estimated that over 224 million adults have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives. It’s incredibly common but the aftermath of trauma can leave you feeling like your world, relationships and body are suddenly unsafe.
The good news? When you begin to better understand and untangle your (totally normal) trauma response, you can break free from the aftermath of trauma and painful life experiences that follow.
Trauma can wreck your life.
Trauma counseling starts with helping you feel validated and seen in your experiences, then therapists provide you with tools to help you manage your symptoms and get your life back on track.
Trauma therapy addresses underlying problem areas such as:
Codependency and people-pleasing dynamics
Betrayal trauma, when you’ve been betrayed or cheated on
Religious abuse or trauma from growing up in a fundamentalist, cult-like, or oppressive religious environment causing
Devastation in family planning and perinatal health, including:
Complicated feelings that come up with foster care and adoption experiences