Trauma +
PTSD Therapy
When the past still echoes and you’re ready to create something new.
Trauma therapy in St. Louis for adults healing from PTSD, childhood trauma, relationship trauma, sexual trauma, military trauma, and other painful experiences.
Trauma lives beyond the past.
Trauma often shows up not only in recurring memories of what happened, but also in relationships, self-worth, and the body itself. You may find yourself repeating painful patterns with others—feeling drawn to familiar dynamics that leave you unseen, unsafe, or emotionally depleted. Over time, you’ve lost confidence, leaving you questioning your worth or doubting your instincts.
At the same time, your body may feel like it never truly gets to rest. Your nervous system is constantly bracing for danger. This leaves you feeling on edge, hypervigilant, exhausted, or shut down. Anxiety seems to have taken over life and your mind is always going.
For some people, these experiences develop into posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Others experience significant effects from trauma without meeting the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis. Many people can feel confused at how something that happened years ago is still impacting them.
What is trauma therapy?
Trauma therapy is psychotherapy designed to help you understand and heal the ways life-threatening or horrific, painful experiences continue to affect your life. Symptoms of PTSD and ongoing impact of trauma can come from a single event.
It could also develop from repeated experiences of being unsafe or multiple sources across your life, including childhood abuse, adult relationship abuse, sexual trauma, military experiences, combat trauma, or witnessing harm to others.
Trauma therapy will help you process the unresolved emotions and memories related to what happened. Trauma causes a big change in your beliefs and how you make sense of the world. Our beliefs affect our behavior— how we live our lives. Trauma therapy helps you find a more balanced mindset about yourself and others; this then makes changing your patterns possible. Trauma therapy will help you process what you've experienced while developing greater self-trust, healthier relationship patterns, stronger boundaries, and a greater sense of safety and connection within yourself.
A space to slow down and listen.
Together, we will work to understand how your past shaped your protective strategies, relationship patterns, and the ways you respond to stress and emotion. I will support you in gradually undoing what is no longer working for you, while building new healthy patterns. Healing looks different for everyone, but I often work with my clients on goals that may include learning to calm your nervous system, handling emotions with more ease, resolving self-blame, standing up for yourself, setting boundaries, and creating relationships that truly feel good to be in.
I come to therapy with the belief that there is so much goodness already within you. If that’s felt lost to you, I create space for you to rediscover yourself, rebuild your confidence, and learn how to be kind to yourself.
As you let go of self-blame and negative views of yourself, you begin to find true happiness and peace within yourself. When you begin to shift out of survival mode, you will start to see more possibilities and live more boldly. And I will hype you up every step of the way.
Trauma experiences I work with.
I have helped adults heal from a range of traumatic and adverse experiences, and have particular specialty in treating the following:
Childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences
Sexual trauma
Relationship abuse and intimate partner violence
Emotional and psychological abuse
Military trauma
Military sexual trauma (MST)
Combat-related trauma
Traumatic deaths and loss (e.g., suicide, pregnancy loss)
Repeated experiences of feeling unsafe, powerless, or unseen
Trauma can affect everyone differently. Your experiences don't have to fit neatly into a category for your experiences to matter, and you don't need to have a formal PTSD diagnosis to seek trauma therapy. Therapy is personalized around your history, your current concerns, and what you want to change.
An Integrative Approach to Trauma and PTSD Therapy
Trauma therapy is not one-size-fits-all. My approach combines evidence-based psychotherapy with mind-body and experiential practices, allowing treatment to be personalized to your history, goals, and the ways trauma is affecting your life today. As a licensed psychologist and trauma therapist in St. Louis, I provide individualized therapy for adults experiencing the effects of trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related concerns.
I draw from several therapeutic approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), compassion-focused approaches, mindfulness-based therapy, somatic approaches, and interpersonal therapy. These approaches can help you understand patterns, work through difficult emotions, build self-compassion, strengthen relationships, and create meaningful change in the ways you think, feel, and respond.
I also integrate my training as a clinical hypnotherapist, certified sex therapist, meditation teacher, and yoga teacher when these approaches are relevant to your goals. Hypnotherapy, mindfulness, meditation, and yoga-informed practices can complement psychotherapy by supporting greater awareness of your thoughts, emotions, body, and patterns of response. Sex therapy may be incorporated when trauma has affected intimacy, sexuality, relationships, or your connection with your body.
Rather than following a predetermined treatment formula, I consider the whole person. We may focus on understanding the impact of trauma, changing patterns that no longer serve you, reconnecting with your body, strengthening your sense of self, or developing healthier relationships and boundaries.
Your therapy is tailored completely to you. We will determine what approaches are most appropriate for your unique history, nervous system, and goals. This allows healing to unfold at a pace that feels both inspiring and safe.
What happens in trauma therapy?
Trauma therapy doesn't mean that you have to immediately revisit every painful thing you've experienced.
We begin by understanding what is happening in your life now and creating a foundation of safety and trust. From there, we can explore the patterns that may have developed in response to your experiences and identify what you want to change.
Depending on your goals and needs, therapy may include:
Understanding trauma and PTSD responses
Developing greater emotional and body awareness
Reducing anxiety, hypervigilance, or emotional overwhelm
Building self-compassion and reducing self-blame
Exploring relationship and attachment patterns
Strengthening boundaries and communication
Processing traumatic memories at an appropriate pace
Rebuilding self-trust, confidence, and a sense of choice
Developing healthier ways of responding to difficult emotions and situations
You remain an active participant in the process and we can adapt our approaches as needed to best meet your goals. My role is to create a space where meaningful change can unfold. I focus on providing the stability and structure that helps you feel safe to process what happened.
Trauma Therapy:
What you may be wondering.
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PTSD can affect people in different ways, and symptoms may not always look the way you expect. Common symptoms include intrusive memories or flashbacks, nightmares, avoiding reminders of what happened, hypervigilance, feeling constantly on guard, anxiety, irritability, emotional numbness, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, or feeling disconnected from yourself or others.
You may also notice changes in your relationships, self-esteem, or ability to feel safe and relaxed. If you recognize some of these experiences, if they could be related to trauma. A trauma psychologist can help you understand what you're experiencing, if your symptoms are related to trauma, if you have a diagnosis of PTSD, and whether trauma-focused therapy may be appropriate.
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Yes. Psychotherapy can help people experiencing PTSD and other lasting effects of traumatic experiences. PTSD is not a forever diagnosis and there are very effective treatments that can alleviate the ongoing impact of the past. Treatment can address symptoms such as intrusive memories, avoidance, hypervigilance, anxiety, emotional distress, shame, relationship difficulties, and feeling disconnected from yourself or your body.
Trauma therapy will help you better understand the past so you can experience greater freedom, self-trust, connection, and choice in your life now.
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If you notice yourself spending a lot of time thinking about past painful experiences, even though you don’t want to, that may be a sign trauma therapy could help you.
If your past continues to influence how you feel, relate, respond, or see yourself today, therapy can help you understand those patterns and decide what you want to change.
You may benefit from exploring trauma if you experience persistent anxiety, hypervigilance, emotional overwhelm, difficulty trusting yourself or others, recurring relationship patterns, difficulty setting boundaries, shame or self-blame, emotional numbness, or a sense that you're still being affected by something that happened in the past.
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Yes. Childhood trauma can continue to influence how you see yourself, relate to others, respond to conflict, manage emotions, and experience closeness and trust in adulthood.
You may notice people-pleasing, difficulty setting boundaries, fear of rejection or abandonment, trouble trusting your instincts, low self-worth, or patterns of choosing relationships that feel familiar but aren't healthy for you. Trauma therapy can help you understand where these patterns came from while developing your self-esteem and healthier connections to others.
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Yes. Trauma can have a significant impact on relationships and intimacy. Past experiences may influence what feels safe or familiar, how you respond to conflict, how easily you trust someone, or how comfortable you feel expressing your needs.
Some people become highly vigilant to changes in other people's moods, while others withdraw, people-please, avoid conflict, or struggle to set limits. Therapy can help you understand these patterns and develop more secure, healthy ways of communicating and connecting.
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Yes. Trauma can contribute to anxiety and a heightened sense of threat or danger. You may feel constantly on guard, easily startled, unable to relax, overwhelmed by certain situations, or worried that something bad is about to happen.
These experiences can occur as part of PTSD or other trauma-related responses. Trauma therapy can help you understand your reactions, develop greater emotional regulation, and build new ways of responding when your mind or body perceives danger.
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No. You don't have to tell your entire story or revisit painful experiences before you're ready.
Trauma therapy begins with what is happening in your life now. We can first focus on creating safety, understanding your patterns, developing coping skills, and building trust in the therapeutic relationship. If exploring specific experiences becomes part of your treatment you know would be healing, we can approach that process gradually and at a pace that feels appropriate for you.
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There isn't one approach that is right for every person. There are a few essential components of trauma treatment, but they can be done through different approaches. Effective trauma treatment is individualized based on your symptoms, history, goals, and preferences.
My clinical approach draws from evidence-based psychotherapy including Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), compassion-focused approaches, mindfulness-based therapy, and interpersonal therapy. We may also integrate clinical hypnotherapy, mindfulness, meditation, yoga-informed practices, or sex therapy if they are relevant to your goals.
The focus is on creating a treatment approach that fits you rather than forcing your experience into a single therapeutic model. Through treating PTSD for over 10 years, I can often tell which approaches you will most easily connect to and we will start there.
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There is no universal timeline for trauma or PTSD therapy. The length of treatment depends on your history, symptoms, goals, current circumstances, and the type of support that is most appropriate for you. But therapy does not need to last forever!
Some people seek focused therapy around a specific experience or concern, while others want longer-term support for complex or longstanding patterns. We can regularly assess your progress and make sure therapy continues to serve what you want from the process. Sessions can begin to be spaced out gradually as you feel ready. This will help you build confidence in sustaining these changes outside of therapy and eventually ending therapy when you decide it’s time.
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Finding the right trauma therapist is personal. The two most important factors to consider are competence and comfort. Learn the therapist's experience with the type of trauma you're experiencing, their approach to PTSD and trauma treatment, their professional credentials, and whether you feel comfortable and understood when speaking with them.
As a licensed psychologist and trauma therapist in St. Louis, I have extensive experience working with adults navigating trauma, PTSD, anxiety, relationship difficulties, sexual concerns, and life transitions. I integrate mind-body approaches, so we’re not just addressing your thoughts and emotions. We’ll work on your nervous system feeling safer so your body can learn to relax more too. I offer a free 15-minute consultation so you can ask questions, share what you're looking for, and get a sense of whether my approach feels like a good fit.
Let’s talk!
Beginning trauma therapy is a brave and deeply personal decision, and it’s important that it feels like a good fit to you.
If anything here resonated with you, I invite you to reach out to learn more about working together. Together we can explore whether this feels like a supportive and aligned next step for you.
