Jan 2024-Spring 2024: I will be on maternity leave and unable to accept new clients.
Trauma Recovery
No Individual Experience Is The Same
No two individuals on this earth are created exactly the same. The way you process everyday life experiences will be different than how someone else will process those same everyday life experiences. The same can be said in regards to how we all process traumatic events. You may be on my website right now after experiencing 1 single traumatic event, or you may be here attempting to make sense of a series of traumatic events that date back many years. You may be unsure how you even managed to survive your past experiences, and the idea of figuring out how to move forward feels absolutely overwhelming. If this describes you in any way, please know it is a completely reasonable and valid way to feel. The fact that you're even considering therapy as a means to help you move forward should highlight how resilient you are, and I admire you for your courage.
My Approach
I view and treat traumatic experiences like I would a physical death of a loved one. In the case of your trauma history, you may not have experienced a death in the physical sense, but it's likely you did experience a wide variety of losses along the way. Some of these losses can include the loss of your innocence, the loss of your sense of safety in the world, the loss of your sense of identity, the loss of your sense of relational and physical autonomy, the loss of your loss of the right to set healthy boundaries, and the list goes on. I can understand how difficult it must be to feel incapable of grieving these losses all alone, with no witness to your story and no therapeutic assistance along the way. My role as your therapist would be to help you grieve these losses, help you find meaningful strategies to assist you in your efforts to cope, and gently remind you of the strengths inherent to you. There is hope.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (otherwise known as EMDR) is commonly used in the treatment of clients who have experienced a single traumatic event or who have been exposed to chronic, recurrent traumatic experiences. I‘m an EMDR-trained therapist who can implement this treatment modality into our work together, if desired. Please feel free to inquire further about this option if you feel it may be beneficial for you.