Trauma therapy that works with what happened

How trauma can show up

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop after you go through or see a life-threatening event. The U.S. National Center for PTSD describes four types of symptoms, and a diagnosis needs each of them:

• Reliving the event, also called re-experiencing.
• Avoiding things that remind you of the event.
• Having more negative thoughts and feelings than before.
• Feeling on edge or keyed up, also called hyperarousal.

You don't need a diagnosis to reach out

Our practice is devoted to trauma recovery, including PTSD after sexual violence, childhood abuse, severe accidents, medical crises, violent assaults and other experiences where your life or safety was threatened.

You don't have to know whether what you're living with is PTSD before you contact us. Working that out is part of the first assessment.

Some people come to us after a single event; others after trauma that went on for years. When trauma was repeated or prolonged, it can also affect how you manage emotions, how you see yourself and how close you can let people get. That pattern is known as complex PTSD.

What “trauma-focused” means

Trauma-focused therapy works with your memory of the traumatic event and what it means to you, not only with coping from day to day.

It's what major guidelines recommend. The 2023 VA/DoD guideline for PTSD strongly recommends three individual trauma-focused therapies (cognitive processing therapy, EMDR and prolonged exposure) over medication, and the World Health Organization describes evidence-based psychological treatments as the first choice for PTSD.

Here, that means EMDR and EMDR 2.0, gradual exposure work when it fits your goals and, for eligible adults, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy with careful preparation and integration. Some people choose to do this work as an intensive over consecutive days.

How we work

Our approach has three steps: evaluate, pinpoint, resolve. First we get to know you and what you're facing. Then we identify the specific memories and triggers behind your symptoms. Then we work through them, one at a time.

Care is structured and measured as you go, so you and your clinician can both see what's changing.

You set the pace. You can ask questions at any point and pause when you need to, and you don't have to share everything at once.

Further reading on our blog

These articles on our blog summarize published research. Most link to the original study, so you can read it for yourself.

• Breaking the Chains: Overcoming the Impact of Childhood Trauma through Trauma-Focused Therapy: intensive trauma-focused treatment for people with a history of childhood sexual abuse (Wagenmans et al., 2018).
• Empowering Trauma Survivors: Effective Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD: whether dissociative symptoms change the outcome of intensive trauma-focused treatment (Zoet et al., 2018).