Telehealth therapy · Anywhere in Florida
Trauma and PTSD Therapy
Your reactions make sense. They can also get easier to live with.
- Florida LCSW, license SW27230
- Secure video sessions
- In network with Aetna, Cigna, Medicare, and more
Common signs
What it can feel like
Trauma can come from one awful day or from years of hard things stacking up. Afterward, your body can keep acting like the danger is still here. Maybe you flinch when a door slams, or you always sit facing the exit at restaurants. That’s your nervous system doing the job it learned, protecting you, long after the threat is gone.
- Flashbacks, nightmares, or memories that barge in uninvited
- Jumping at small noises, or always scanning the room
- Going out of your way to dodge certain places or people
- Feeling numb, far away, or not quite like yourself
- Finding it hard to trust people
- Replaying what you should have done differently
- Bad sleep, and a shorter fuse than usual
The first sessions
You don’t have to tell the whole story on day one
Plenty of people put off trauma therapy because they picture the first appointment as a play-by-play of the worst things that ever happened to them. We usually start somewhere else, with questions like these.
It does not have to work that way.
First, I need to understand what is happening now.
- What’s getting in the way day to day?
- Where do you feel least safe?
- What have you stopped doing?
- What happens with the people close to you?
- What does your body do when something brings it back?
- What helps?
- What sets it off?
Some trauma treatments do work directly with the memories later on. We can talk about whether that fits you.
But therapy should still have a reason for what we are doing.
I want you to understand that reason.
Why it sticks around
Avoidance buys relief, then sends the bill
Avoiding reminders makes a lot of sense at first.
If a song, a smell, or a parking lot drags you back to one of the worst days of your life, your brain will vote to never go near it again.
Right away, it works. You feel relief.
Over time, though, the avoiding spreads. You skip the grocery store at busy hours, then skip it altogether. You change the subject before it gets close. Bit by bit, your schedule gets built around what you can’t face.
Much of trauma therapy is about taking those choices back from fear, one at a time.
Being on high alert and avoiding things overlap with anxiety, so that page may help too.
How I work with it
Trauma-informed and trauma-focused mean different things
The two get mixed up a lot.
Trauma-informed care
Trauma-informed care means knowing how trauma can shape your sense of safety, trust, relationships, behavior, and your body’s alarm system. It even shapes how it feels to sit across from a provider, on video or not.
In practice, you get a say. I explain what I’m suggesting and why, we decide together, and we don’t stir up pain without a good reason.
Trauma-focused psychotherapy
Trauma-focused psychotherapy is a narrower category.
These are structured treatments such as Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, and EMDR. They work directly on traumatic memories and what those memories came to mean, and they have substantial research support for PTSD.
I work on the trauma-informed side.
That means helping you understand why your body reacts the way it does, practicing skills to settle it when it spikes, chipping away at avoidance, and questioning beliefs trauma left behind, like “it was my fault” or “people can’t be trusted.” We also deal with how it shows up in your week.
If one of those specific trauma protocols, or a level of care beyond what I provide, would serve you better, I’ll tell you that plainly.
No therapist is great at everything. I’d rather be upfront about my lane than fake it.
Where we start
What sessions usually cover
Nobody should be pushed to relive the worst moments of their life before they’re ready. We build some steadiness first, like better sleep, grounding, and a plan for rough days, and you decide what we talk about and when.
If trauma is tangled up with psychosis, bipolar disorder, or another serious mental illness, the serious mental illness page is worth a read.
What comes up often
- Why your body reacts the way it does
- Grounding when you’re flooded
- Avoidance
- Hypervigilance
- Shame and self-blame
- Trusting people again
- Relationships
- Sleep
- Triggers
- Feeling numb or shut down
- Boundaries
- Grief
- Feeling safe in your own life
- Linking today’s reactions to the past, without making trauma the whole story of who you are
If you are thinking about suicide
You are not alone, and help is available right now. Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time, day or night. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. This website and my phone line are not monitored around the clock.
Before you book
Common questions
Questions people tend to ask before starting trauma work. The FAQ page has more.
Do I have to tell you exactly what happened?
No.
Not right away, and not every detail. Depending on your goals and how we work, the memories themselves may come up later on. You don’t have to prove something hurt you before we can work on it.
Is trauma-informed therapy the same as EMDR?
No.
No. Trauma-informed care is a way of giving care, with safety and teamwork built in.
EMDR is one particular trauma-focused psychotherapy.
What if I am not sure what happened “counts” as trauma?
It doesn’t need a label to be worth talking about. We can look at what happened and how it’s affecting you, and skip the debate about vocabulary.
Ready when you are
Pick a time on my scheduling page whenever you’re ready. Insurance and private pay book the same way, and you can add your insurance there. Rather ask something first? Call 754.400.0824 or send me a message. The plans I take are on the Insurance page.
What it costs: your plan’s copay or coinsurance if I am in network, 20% after the deductible with Original Medicare, or the private pay rate. See costs
For the curious
Want to nerd out on the research?
You don’t need to read any research to start trauma therapy. If you like knowing where these approaches come from, these are solid places to begin.
- PTSD Treatment Basics (opens in a new tab)VA National Center for PTSD
- Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of PTSD (opens in a new tab)American Psychological Association
- Trauma-Informed Approaches and Programs (opens in a new tab)SAMHSA
This website is not for emergencies. If you are in crisis, call or text 988, or call 911.
