Therapy for Trauma

and PTSD in Arlington, VA

Maybe you feel overwhelmed more often than you think you should, but you can’t always explain why. You find yourself caught in the same patterns, disconnected from yourself, or incredibly critical of who you are and how you handle things.

You know there have been difficult experiences in your past, some you may have never talked about. Others might be hard to even admit affected you. Maybe you’ve wondered whether what you experienced was “bad enough” to call trauma, especially when you compare it to what other people have been through.

You don’t have to know exactly what to call your experiences before we start making sense of them. We can look at what happened, how you learned to cope with it, and what may still be affecting the way you feel about yourself and move through your life today.

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You May Be Here Because

You May Be Here Because

Maybe you’ve found yourself wondering…

  • Why do I immediately assume someone is upset with me?

  • Why do I freeze or shut down during conflict?

  • Why is it so hard for me to relax, even when everything is okay?

  • Why do I feel responsible for everyone else?

  • Why do certain situations affect me so much more than I think they should?

  • Why does my body react like something is wrong when I know logically that I’m safe?

What is Trauma?

Trauma is anything that overwhelms your ability to cope.

What feels traumatic is deeply personal. Two people can experience something similar and be affected very differently depending on their age, support system, previous experiences, nervous system, and countless other factors.

Some trauma comes from an identifiable event. Other experiences are harder to name: emotional neglect, chronic criticism, unpredictable caregiving,
high-demand religion, bullying, difficult relationships, or growing up in an environment where you rarely felt safe, seen, or understood.

Many people hesitate to call their experiences trauma because someone else had it worse. Pain doesn’t need to be ranked before we take it seriously and empathy isn’t a scarce resource.

Together, we can understand what your experiences have meant in the context of your life and how they may still be affecting you today.

What is Complex Trauma (C-PTSD?

Complex trauma, sometimes called C-PTSD, can develop through repeated or ongoing experiences rather than one specific event. This is especially common when difficult experiences happen during childhood or within important relationships.

Over time, you may have learned to stay small, work harder, become highly independent, care for everyone else first, anticipate other people’s moods, or disconnect from your own emotions. Those strategies can continue long after the circumstances that originally shaped them have changed.

Your nervous system learns from experience, which can help explain why you may logically know you’re safe and still have a strong emotional or physical reaction.

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Trauma Therapy at Soul Bloom

We’ll start with where you are now. I want to understand what’s been feeling hard, what happens when you get overwhelmed, what you’ve already learned about yourself, and what you hope will be different. We’ll also spend time figuring out what helps you feel safe enough to stay present with difficult emotions instead of feeling completely debilitated by them.

As we understand your patterns more clearly, we can begin working with the experiences underneath them. That might mean noticing what happens in your body, understanding why certain situations bring up such strong reactions, working with the critical or protective parts of you, or processing memories that still feel very present even though they happened a long time ago.

I often use EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS) in trauma therapy, but I don’t expect every person to need the same kind of therapy. We’ll decide together what feels useful based on what you’re experiencing and where you are in the process.

Over time, my hope is that you can feel less controlled by what happened to you. That might look like trusting yourself more, feeling safer in relationships, responding differently when something triggers you, having more compassion for yourself, or simply feeling more present in your own life.

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Frequently Asked Questions

  • You don’t need to be certain that what you experienced was trauma before reaching out. If something from your past still seems to affect the way you feel abut yourself, respond to stress, experience relationships, or move through your life today, we can explore that together.

  • I work with adults navigating childhood trauma, attachment wounds, complex trauma (C-PTSD), relationship trauma, medical trauma, grief, and other experiences that continue to impact daily life.

  • I tailor trauma therapy to the person I’m working with. We may focus on nervous system regulation, understanding triggers and protective responses, making connections between past experiences and current patterns, or processing experiences that still feel unresolved.

    I also integrate EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS) when they’re helpful. We’ll decide together what makes sense based on what you’re experiencing and what feels supportive to you.

  • Understanding why you feel or react a certain way can be incredibly helpful, but sometimes insight only takes you so far. You may know exactly where a pattern comes from and still find yourself having the same reaction when something triggers it.

    Trauma therapy can help us work with what’s happening emotionally and physically, not just what you understand intellectually. Approaches like EMDR and IFS can be especially helpful when you feel like you’ve already talked about something and understand it, but it still seems to have a hold on you.