Therapy Services

Trauma within family relationships are the most painful and vulnerable. They impact our ability to feel safe in future connections. Family trauma is a complication and lonely experience because it doesn’t end in childhood. We are so desperate to connect with our families and feel the sense of belonging. How can we do that when their is so much unprocessed pain in our past?

As a survivor of family trauma myself, we will work together to build healthy connections and heal from the experiences that led you here. I unfortunately understand the isolation and pain family trauma brings. I know how to get to the other side too.

Grief is a part of life unfortunately. We lose people and pets and it will always be painful. Traumatic grief is a whole other experience. I lost my father with whom I had a complicated and abusive relationship. Him dying was one of the most traumatic turning points of my life. The loss of what the relationship could have been and never was. It was excruciating. I’ve been through it and know too deeply the loneliness and shame of this experience. I can help you through the pain as we feel the loss together and learn ways to take one step at a time.

We so desperately want to leave our childhood traumas behind. It might feel silly to keep holding onto something that happened so long ago. The people that hurt us might have changed or don’t even exist in our lives anymore. I get it. I’ve done it. I tried it. And I got into some messy relationships trying to subconsciously fix the broken parts of myself. If you’re reading this far, you’ve probably done the same. We can still nurture our child-self. We need to give space for that little kid! He/she deserved better than what happened to them. We can still do that now, let’s do it together.

There is a completely different type of processing we need to work through when experiencing traumatic events or dynamics in adulthood. It can be painful because we may believe we already crawled out of all the pain of our childhoods. Why is this happening to me all over again? Haven’t I been through enough? It can be excruciating when we have done all of this work but life just slaps you in the face with new distress and new traumas.

There are likely connections to our childhood wounds. Unfortunately they do all jumble together and get messy. The chaos and pain can feel debilitating. We will uproot these experiences and process through them together.

We desperately don’t want to repeat the cycle. We want to do better for our kids. But oh boy! Do our children bring out the deepest of our wounds? Caring so deeply about someone who also pokes at our painful parts? Yikes. Kids are often mirrors to our traumas. We don’t have to cause damage when we are wounded. We don’t have to do the same as our parents did. But it does take work and healing. Let’s do it together because I’ve been there!

Why does it feel so hard to say “no”? Often times saying “no” in our childhoods wasn’t an option. We learn to accomodate to those around us. We likely didn’t have a choice as children. As adults, we can now create spaces where our voices can be heard. It’s necessary and important for healing.

Boundaries create a space for us to get to know ourselves in a healthy way. It sounds simple but it often isn’t within codependent relationships.

If we have learnt a life of codependency, boundaries can feel violating. People often don’t like them! They will cause friction. But I want you to experience life where you can truly be yourself. “No” is actually one of the most loving things you can say. You are being true to yourself as well as the other person. Honesty is how relationships build.

Estrangement is one of the most painful and misunderstood family dynamics. I had an estranged relationship with my father for several years. The grief of that relationship while he was alive and while he wasn’t was excruciating.

I describe estrangement as cutting off a limb. We would never ask for this unless it was only completely necessary. I would never wish it upon anyone. It’s important to work through if there is repair or not. We can do that together.

EMDR is a type of therapy that utilizes eye movement and/or tapping to help us access parts of the brain impacted by trauma. EMDR might feel strange at first but has been a highly researched therapy which I’ve found to have wonderful healing results for my clients. When we are traumatized, our mind and body start to fragment as a way to survive. We lose touch with ourselves and our bodies and EMDR is a way to bring all those pieces back together.

More about EMDR

Somatic Therapy helps us bridge the gap between our minds and bodies. Often times when we start therapy, our minds get it but our bodies don’t catch up. While we may intellectually understand our traumas, to truly heal we need to connect with how our body remembers. Traumas lead to disconnection between our bodies and mind to survive. We can thank our bodies for the ways it has learnt to survive. But these trauma responses can become a hindrance to our everyday life. Our symptoms are a result of our mind AND body needing to heal. Our body has so much healing power within it. We need to learn practices to get there. I’ve found using somatics myself has kept my regulated within the most distressing traumas of my adult life.