Trauma
Trauma refers to experiences that overwhelm the capacity to cope—events or circumstances that exceed psychological and emotional resources, leaving lasting effects on how the nervous system, memory, and sense of safety function. Trauma isn't defined by the event itself but by its impact: what's traumatic for one person may not be for another, shaped by context, prior experiences, support systems, and individual factors.
Traumatic experiences can be singular events (accidents, assaults, natural disasters) or chronic and ongoing (childhood abuse or neglect, domestic violence, war, systemic oppression). The effects of trauma can include intrusive memories, hypervigilance, emotional numbing, difficulty trusting, disrupted sleep, and a pervasive sense that the world isn't safe. Trauma also lives in the body—the nervous system remains activated, interpreting present situations through the lens of past danger.
We work with people navigating the aftermath of many types of trauma. We bring training in trauma-informed approaches, somatic therapies, and evidence-based treatments. This work prioritizes safety and stabilization before processing traumatic memories, honors the body's role in trauma and healing, and recognizes that recovery involves reclaiming agency and reconnecting with life beyond survival.
Understanding Trauma
Recognizing trauma's nature and effects helps make sense of responses that can feel confusing or shameful.
What Is Trauma?
Overwhelming experiences that exceed capacity to cope create trauma when they surpass available psychological, emotional, or physical resources. The nervous system, unable to process the experience fully at the time, stores it in fragmented ways that can resurface through flashbacks, nightmares, or body sensations. Single-event versus complex trauma distinguishes between discrete incidents (car accident, assault, natural disaster) and prolonged, repeated trauma (childhood abuse, domestic violence, war, captivity). Developmental trauma, when trauma occurs during childhood and disrupts normal development, affects attachment, identity formation, emotional regulation, and capacity for trust in particularly profound ways.
Common Trauma Responses
Flashbacks and intrusive memories involve re-experiencing traumatic events as though they're happening now—through images, sounds, smells, or intense emotions that flood in without warning. Hypervigilance and startle response mean the nervous system remains on high alert, scanning for danger, overreacting to sudden movements or sounds, and struggling to relax even in safe environments. Avoidance of people, places, conversations, or reminders associated with the trauma helps manage overwhelming emotions but can narrow life significantly. Emotional numbing protects against pain but also limits capacity for joy, connection, and full engagement with life. Dissociation—feeling disconnected from body, emotions, or reality—served as protection during trauma but can persist afterward, creating a sense of watching life from outside.
How Trauma Lives in the Body
Nervous system dysregulation means the autonomic nervous system gets stuck in survival modes—hyperarousal (fight/flight: anxiety, panic, anger) or hypoarousal (freeze/shutdown: numbness, depression, dissociation)—rather than flexibly responding to actual safety or threat. Somatic symptoms without clear medical cause—chronic pain, headaches, digestive issues, pelvic pain—can reflect trauma stored in the body. Body-based trauma responses, like flinching at touch or bracing against perceived threat, happen automatically before conscious thought. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses are survival strategies: fighting back, fleeing, shutting down when escape isn't possible, or appeasing the threat to minimize harm. In therapy, understanding these as adaptive responses rather than character flaws reduces shame and provides starting points for healing.
Types of Trauma We Address
Different traumas bring distinct patterns and challenges, though healing principles often overlap.
Interpersonal Trauma
Childhood abuse or neglect—physical, sexual, emotional abuse, or neglect of basic needs—shapes development in profound ways, affecting attachment, self-worth, and capacity to trust. Domestic violence and intimate partner violence create trauma compounded by the fact that the source of harm is someone trusted or loved, disrupting the capacity to feel safe in relationships. Sexual assault and rape, whether by strangers or known individuals, violate bodily autonomy and safety in ways that can affect sexuality, relationships, and sense of control over one's body. Betrayal trauma occurs when harm comes from someone depended upon—a parent, partner, therapist, religious leader—adding betrayal to the traumatic experience itself. Complex PTSD from chronic relational trauma involves not just re-experiencing and hypervigilance but also difficulties with emotional regulation, negative self-concept, and challenges in relationships.
Collective and Historical Trauma
Racial trauma from experiences of racism—whether acute incidents or chronic stress of marginalization—creates psychological harm similar to other traumas, compounded by its ongoing nature and societal denial. Intergenerational trauma, passed down through families and communities who have survived slavery, genocide, colonization, forced displacement, or war, shapes how descendants experience the world even when they haven't directly experienced the original trauma. War and displacement, whether as combatants, civilians in war zones, or refugees fleeing conflict, involve multiple traumas—violence witnessed or experienced, loss of loved ones, destruction of homes and communities, forced migration. Community violence and systemic oppression create traumatic stress through chronic exposure to violence, poverty, discrimination, and the grinding impact of systems not built to support survival, let alone thriving.
Identity-Based Trauma
Discrimination and hate crimes targeting people because of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other marginalized identities create trauma compounded by the message that who you are makes you a target. Religious trauma from harmful religious environments—spiritual abuse, shaming, coercive control, rejection for questioning—can affect spiritual life, relationship with authority, and sense of self-worth. Coming out trauma for LGBTQ+ individuals can include family rejection, community exile, violence, or internalized homophobia and transphobia developed through years of negative messaging. Medical trauma for marginalized bodies occurs when healthcare systems harm through neglect, discrimination, forced procedures, or disbelief of symptoms—particularly affecting people of color, fat individuals, trans people, and those with disabilities.
Trauma-Informed Treatment
Effective trauma treatment prioritizes safety, respects the body's wisdom, and proceeds at a pace that doesn't retraumatize.
Creating Safety and Stabilization
Nervous system regulation through breathing techniques, grounding exercises, and developing awareness of the body's signals helps create capacity to tolerate difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed. Grounding techniques—orienting to present reality through senses (5 things you can see, 4 you can hear, 3 you can touch, 2 you can smell, 1 you can taste), feet on floor, noticing surroundings—interrupt flashbacks and dissociation. Resourcing involves identifying sources of safety, comfort, and strength (people, places, memories, values, spiritual practices) that can be drawn upon when distress feels overwhelming. Establishing safety in the therapy relationship through predictability, clear boundaries, transparency about process, and honoring the client's control over what's discussed and when creates the foundation for trauma work.
Processing Traumatic Memories
Narrative exposure involves telling the trauma story in a coherent way, integrating fragmented memories into autobiographical narrative that can be stored as past rather than present. Somatic experiencing works directly with body sensations and incomplete survival responses, helping the nervous system complete fight or flight responses that were thwarted during trauma. Integrating fragmented experiences means bringing together sensory fragments, emotions, and narrative into coherent memory that feels like "this happened to me" rather than "this is happening now."
Integrating and Living Beyond Trauma
Reclaiming agency involves rebuilding sense of choice and control—over body, environment, relationships, and life direction—that trauma disrupted. Finding meaning doesn't mean the trauma was acceptable or "happened for a reason," but rather making sense of how to live with it and what might emerge despite it. Reconnecting with values and what matters helps shift focus from survival to living—identifying what gives life meaning and taking steps aligned with those values. Building life beyond trauma isn't about forgetting or "getting over it" but about expanding identity beyond "trauma survivor" to include other roles, relationships, and possibilities. Honoring survival recognizes the strength, creativity, and resilience required to survive trauma, celebrating not just healing but the fact of having endured.
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