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Therapy for Trauma

Trauma therapy may be right for you if you have a high ACE score or have experienced mental, physical, emotional, financial, or sexual abuse as a child or adult. It may also be helpful if you have experienced or witnessed a life-threatening event, grew up with a parent struggling with untreated mental health concerns or substance use, or were repeatedly told as a child that you had nothing to be upset about and experienced chronic invalidation.

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While trauma can refer to life-threatening events or abuse, it can also develop through chronic misattunement during developmental and attachment stages. Trauma may stem from ongoing experiences of emotional aloneness while trying to cope with overwhelming emotions, especially during childhood, regardless of the triggering events.

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There are many modalities used to treat trauma, including trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and internal family systems (IFS), among others. Regardless of the modality or blend of approaches, trauma treatment generally focuses on three phases:

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  • Safety and stabilization

  • Reprocessing

  • Integration

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Trauma therapy is not linear and often occurs in phases at the client’s pace. It is not about reliving traumatic experiences repeatedly. Rather, trauma therapy focuses on:

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  • Equipping you with skills to manage emotional overwhelm or flooding

  • Helping you gain control over the amount of emotion you are able to process at any given time

  • Increasing your ability to approach trauma reminders or triggers safely for processing

  • Addressing unhelpful self-beliefs resulting from trauma, such as “I’m not safe” or “I’m unlovable”

  • Strengthening adaptive neural networks so you can access new perspectives, emotional resources, and healthier beliefs that may not have been available during the original traumatic experience

  • Reducing dissociation, numbness, panic, and other trauma-related symptoms

  • Decreasing the intensity of trauma triggers connected to memories, places, people, or experiences

  • Helping free you from shame, overwhelm, numbness, and feeling stuck in the past so you can live more fully with all parts of yourself and your experiences

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The goal of trauma therapy is not to erase or forget what happened, nor to excuse injustices. While we cannot change the past, we can change our relationship to it. Healing involves moving from shame and survival toward greater self-understanding, self-compassion, resilience, and emotional freedom. 

Email

contact@heldselftherapy.com

Therapy for Attachment

Attachment theory recognizes that our earliest relationships shape the way our nervous system experiences safety, connection, and emotional regulation. The bonds we form in childhood often influence how we relate to ourselves and others throughout life, impacting how we learn to trust, sustain intimacy, navigate conflict, create boundaries, and our own self-worth.

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You may be seeking attachment-focused therapy if you:

  • Struggle in relationships or experience recurring unhealthy relationship patterns

  • Feel disconnected, emotionally overwhelmed, or fearful of closeness

  • Carry shame, self-criticism, or feelings of not being “good enough”

  • Have experienced abuse, neglect, trauma, or inconsistent caregiving

  • Feel stuck in painful family dynamics or strained family relationships

  • Notice difficulty trusting others, expressing needs, or feeling emotionally safe

  • Experience heightened criticism those in relationship with you, impacting your experience of closeness

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Attachment focused therapy helps you understand how early experiences shaped your internal world and relational patterns. We will work to recognize the protective strategies your nervous system developed for survival and learn to create new experiences of safety, connection, and healing.

Using trauma-informed approaches including Internal Family Systems (IFS) and EMDR, attachment-focused therapy can help you:

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  • Gain insight into how your developmental experiences shaped your emotional regulation, self-image, and relationships

  • Understand your attachment style and the patterns that continue to show up in your life

  • Explore how you seek, avoid, or protect yourself from connection

  • Heal internal attachment wounds rooted in past experiences

  • Develop healthier ways to communicate needs, set boundaries, and build secure relationships

  • Strengthen self-compassion and reduce shame and self-criticism

  • Create lasting change by breaking generational and relational attachment cycles

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Through attachment-focused therapy you can heal younger parts of yourself burdened by unmet needs and maladaptive behaviors and create new experiences of emotional safety, deepen your connection with yourself and others, and move toward more secure and healthy relationships. 

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