Trauma Therapy

If you’ve experienced trauma, and you’re seeking relief, I can help.

As a trauma therapist based in Oakland, CA, I provide psychotherapy for adults with PTSD, developmental trauma, attachment trauma, and survivors of childhood neglect and narcissistic abuse.

After a traumatic event (or series of events), even many years later, you may struggle with depression, isolation, panic and irritability. You may feel terrified of losing control. Substance abuse is common, as are other risky or self-destructive behaviors. Sleeping is difficult. Forget about relaxing; you’re constantly on edge.

PTSD leaves people in a state of heightened alarm. It’s as if your body thinks the trauma is still happening all the time. It’s important then, to focus on ways to release the trauma that may be stored not just in your mind, but in your physical body. Heard of fight, flight, fawn or freeze? The good news is that you can learn to repair your stressed nervous system with breathing techniques, movement, and productive ways of expressing anger and sadness as part of your therapy process.

Traumas Associated With PTSD that I work with:

• Rape

• Assault or sexual assault

• Early childhood trauma including developmental trauma and attachment trauma

• Childhood neglect (including emotional neglect and lack of affection)

• Narcissistic abuse

• Adult children of alcoholic or addicted parents

• Multi-generational or historical trauma

• Collective trauma related to climate change

• Vicarious trauma related to a healing or helping profession

• Surviving the suicide of a loved one

• Traumatic loss

• Life-threatening illness

• Psychedelic trauma

Trauma: You’ve been scared out of your mind.

A common symptom of PTSD is dissociation. Some experiences are just too overwhelming for the conscious mind to bear, so we detach as a way to protect ourselves. This may become problematic when the dissociation continues, and we feel consistently disconnected from ourselves and others. 

Longer-term therapy is the best treatment for dissociation. Over time, your consciousness can begin to trust that it’s safe enough to stick around. We will explore all the parts of you, including the part that’s been protecting you by “going away.” Eventually, you can return to wholeness.

Grief and Shame are Trauma Responses

When processing trauma, people often go through many feelings associated with grief: denial, anger, bargaining and depression are very common. However, when we blame ourselves for what happened, or we feel that what happened makes us bad, we may be stuck in toxic shame. Shame, for many, is the worst of all human emotions. Paradoxically, for many of us, blaming ourselves served some kind of protective function at some point. Eventually, however, we may feel chronically unworthy of love, happiness or anything good.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you heal from painful trauma, reach out.

So You Have Complex Trauma or Complex PTSD…

On the outside, it looks like you have everything together; but on the inside, you feel broken. You want to love yourself, but you’re suffocated by anxiety, insecurity, shame or depression. If you need help sorting though that huge pile of fear that gets in the way of connecting with yourself and other people, you’re in the right place.

Unfortunately, complex trauma isn’t an official diagnosis in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). However, complex trauma is very real, and it can be extremely painful to live with. Complex trauma is called “complex” because it often happens over time; there isn’t a single pronounced traumatic event. This kind of PTSD most often stems from chronic physical or emotional abuse or neglect in childhood; or from very early relational trauma, attachment trauma or developmental trauma.

Complex PTSD can, and often does, correlate with other disorders. You may have been diagnosed or misdiagnosed with OCD, ADHD, ADD, Bipolar Disorder, Panic Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder. This is not to say that those symptoms don’t fit you, but the symptoms of those disorders may actually be related to a set of behaviors or symptoms that are trauma-responses.

Toxic Shame with Complex PTSD

If you felt constantly rejected, criticized, neglected or abused growing up, it’s pretty typical to have believed it was your fault. You may have felt disgusting, ugly and unlovable; feelings that may persist into the present, even as an adult. You might suffer from “emotional flashbacks” that suddenly flood you with feelings of worthlessness, helplessness and terror that are reminiscent of the way you felt as a child.

If you are resonating with what I’m saying here, please know there’s hope. You don’t have to continue to suffer as you have all of your life. I can tell you right now that despite what you may have believed (or been told), this condition was caused by your early environment, not by some inherent flaw or brain abnormality. Your symptoms, behaviors and beliefs were learned, and therefore, they can be unlearned.

When your trauma came from the people you needed to help you survive as a child, it can be difficult to trust again. However, healing comes from finding relationships that show you that you are lovable, worthy, and resilient.

Reach out to begin repairing this deeply painful relational wound. You’re more than worth it!