TRAUMA THERAPY IN PASADENA
Evidence-based treatment + support
You haven’t felt yourself in a long time...
It’s a memory or experience you don’t want to reopen, but you can’t deny the toll it’s taking inside. You’re prone to nightmares, insomnia, anxiety, or depression. Or you experience inexplicable physical symptoms, like headaches, digestive issues, with no apparent source.
Trauma happens when distressing events shake our understanding of the world or overwhelm our ability to cope. This can include single-incident events, like violence, accidents, natural disasters, as well as repeated exposure to stressful events, like ongoing childhood abuse and neglect.
When left unprocessed trauma can get stuck:
Clouding your sense of self
Disconnecting you from your body
Leading to challenges in relationships
Driving you to numb by any means possible
how we can help
Sometimes the only way out is through
Trauma therapy helps clients heal through the processing and integration of traumatic material.
A safe and contained place to open up, with the potential addition of more structured trauma treatments like EMDR and IFS, allows clients to slowly release the pain of past experiences and increase their capacity for healthy connection again.
Effectively working through trauma can even lead to what psychologists call Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), or the ability to grow, making meaning of, and find a greater sense of purpose and resilience in the process.
Different types of trauma
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Childhood trauma can include physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal or emotional abuse, and neglect. Early trauma can also include experiences such as bullying, loss of a parent, divorce, financial instability, and much more.
Complex trauma can result from prolonged exposure to these types of threats or instability, and relational and attachment trauma can happen when there is a rupture to the safety and security of significant attachments, such as through a caregiver who was frequently unresponsive, unpredictable, abusive, or neglectful.
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Acute trauma includes experiences related to distinct incidents, such as sexual or physical assault, accidents, natural disasters, combat, domestic violence, medical trauma, or even witnessing an extreme or life-threatening event.
Single-incident traumas can also be related to major life events, such as the loss of a job or loved one, divorce, or major illness.
In some instances, people develop PTSD, which includes symptoms like nightmares and flashbacks, increased hypervigilence and startle response, and significant changes in mood and emotional numbness or reactivity.
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Intergenerational trauma is trauma that can continue to have downstream effects through families and generations.
For example, the trauma directly experienced from war, racism, immigration, depression, abuse, or domestic violence, may continue to be indirectly experienced by children, grandchildren, and other community members through certain actions, behaviors, parenting styles, and cultural responses.
It makes sense that trauma symptoms and responses can naturally perpetuate cycles this way. Now, new research in epigenetics also shows us that trauma can have effect on the next generation all the way down at the genetic level.
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Collective trauma includes traumatic events experienced by entire groups or societies, such as racism, pandemics, terrorism, natural disasters, financial crises, and war. Symptoms and lasting impacts can sometimes be experienced similarly across people who have a shared experience of the event.
Trauma therapy can help you…
Make sense of trauma
Change the faulty beliefs instilled about yourself and see the full picture
Let go
Be fully seen and heard in your experience and leave the past in the past
Find growth
Rediscover your sense of connection with yourself and find joy again
We want you to know:
Joy is possible again.
faqs
Common questions about trauma therapy
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Collectively our therapists have training in evidence-based trauma modalities including EMDR, IFS, and TF-CBT.
If you’re interested in a specific approach, feel free to check out the individual therapist pages under Our Team for more info on what each of our practitioners specialize in.
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We don’t either. Trauma much more complex than pointing the finger at one person, and the truth is that it’s often passed down through many generations. However, an important part of breaking the cycle and healing is being able to understand and address the real impact certain experiences, or lack of experiences, actually had. Imperfect childhood experiences are a part of everyone’s life, and therapy can simply help tend to early events that have yet to be repaired.
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Of course. Your therapist cares greatly that addressing trauma is done in a gentle and trauma-informed way, and that you always have agency in your treatment. This can mean going as slow as you need, or addressing any feelings of fear or concern before ever going any further. While some boxes can be scary to open, clients often feel relieved once they let it out.