Trauma Therapist in New York & California

Trauma can quietly shape how you experience yourself, others, and the world—often long after the original event has passed. Its effects may be subtle or overwhelming, predictable or disorienting, making it difficult to understand why certain reactions persist or feel beyond your control. If you are exploring this page, you may already sense that unprocessed experiences are influencing your emotional responses, nervous system, or relationships. Trauma therapy offers space to gently separate what you are experiencing from who you are, and to work toward healing in a way that feels grounded and contained. If you’re seeking trauma therapy in New York or California, the information below can help you determine whether this support feels like a meaningful next step.

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What Is Trauma?

Trauma is not defined solely by what happened, but by how an experience was processed—or overwhelmed—by your nervous system. It can shape cognitive, emotional, physical, and relational functioning, often in ways that are difficult to trace back to a single moment or event. Trauma is deeply personal, and what feels traumatic for one person may not be experienced the same way by another.

Traumatic experiences can include acute events, such as accidents, medical emergencies, assaults, or natural disasters, as well as chronic or relational experiences like childhood neglect, emotional unavailability, or ongoing exposure to stress without adequate support. What matters most is not the category of the experience, but how your mind and body adapted in order to survive it.

Some individuals are able to process difficult experiences through connection, meaning-making, and time. For others, trauma lingers in the nervous system, showing up as emotional numbness, hypervigilance, anxiety, mood shifts, dissociation, or a sense of disconnection from oneself or others. These responses are not signs of weakness—they are adaptive strategies that once served a protective purpose, but may no longer feel supportive.

Trauma does not always present in obvious or dramatic ways. For many, its effects are subtle and cumulative, emerging as patterns in relationships, persistent stress responses, difficulty regulating emotions, or a feeling of being “stuck” or on edge without clear cause. Symptoms may be ongoing or surface only in specific situations that activate the nervous system.

From a holistic perspective, trauma is understood as an experience that lives in both mind and body. Therapy offers space to gently explore these patterns, restore a sense of safety, and support the nervous system in reestablishing regulation and connection. Healing is not about reliving or rehashing what happened, but about creating the conditions that allow your system to integrate past experiences and move forward with greater ease and flexibility.

Trauma Therapy Support

Support for the emotional, relational, and nervous system effects of trauma, including hypervigilance, emotional numbness, anxiety, dissociation, mood shifts, difficulty with trust or connection, and trauma that co-occurs with depression or anxiety. Trauma therapy helps identify how past experiences continue to shape present-day patterns—while supporting regulation, integration, and a greater sense of safety and stability in the body and in relationships.

Special Focus Areas

While trauma is deeply personal, certain patterns commonly emerge. Trauma therapy may be helpful if you are experiencing:

Early experiences of neglect, inconsistency, or emotional overwhelm that continue to shape emotional regulation, self-concept, or relational patterns in adulthood.

Injuries that occur within close relationships, including attachment wounds, betrayal, or chronic misattunement, often affecting trust, boundaries, and intimacy.

The cumulative impact of repeated or prolonged stressors, often relational in nature, that shape nervous system responses, identity, and emotional regulation over time.

Intrusive memories, heightened startle responses, avoidance, or physiological reactivity connected to a specific traumatic event or period.

Sudden waves of emotion—such as fear, shame, or overwhelm—that arise without a clear present-day trigger and are often rooted in earlier experiences.

A persistent sense of alertness or scanning for threat that makes it difficult to relax, rest, or feel safe in the body or environment.

Feelings of numbness, detachment, disconnection, or “checking out” as a nervous system response to overwhelm or perceived threat.

Trauma related to death, separation, or significant loss, including experiences where grief was unsupported, complicated, or delayed.

Difficulty returning to a state of calm after stress, with symptoms such as overwhelm, agitation, collapse, or emotional flooding.

Challenges with safety, closeness, or vulnerability that emerge in connection with others, often linked to earlier relational experiences.
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A Holistic, Somatic, and Psychodynamic Approach

Trauma does not exist only in memory or thought—it lives in the body, nervous system, and relational history. My approach to trauma therapy is holistic, somatic, and psychodynamic, meaning we explore how past experiences, attachment patterns, and physiological responses continue to shape present-day reactions and ways of relating.

Rather than forcing exposure or retelling events, therapy focuses on creating safety, listening to what your nervous system is communicating, and gently shifting patterns that developed in response to overwhelm or threat. This may include supporting nervous system regulation, increasing emotional and bodily awareness, working with unconscious relational dynamics, and restoring a sense of internal stability and trust.

Therapy is collaborative and paced with care. Your experience guides the process, and together we work toward helping trauma responses soften—so you can feel more grounded, connected, and secure in your life and relationships.

Your Trauma Therapy Experience

Trauma therapy is a focused, collaborative process shaped around your lived experience. Sessions are guided by how trauma responses show up in your body, emotions, and relationships, and by what feels most supportive and regulating at each stage of the work. Together, we move at a pace that prioritizes safety, stability, and trust—creating space for integration and change. Our work often explores the emotional, relational, and somatic dimensions of trauma—helping responses such as hypervigilance, shutdown, or emotional overwhelm feel less consuming and more manageable over time. The aim is not to erase the past, but to reduce the ways trauma continues to shape your present, so you can engage with life with greater ease, agency, and connection.

  • Sessions are 45 minutes, typically held once weekly.
  • Some individuals engage in shorter-term work, often three to six months, when focusing on a specific traumatic experience or period of destabilization.
  • Others choose longer-term therapy to explore complex or developmental trauma, attachment patterns, and nervous system responses, continuing for as long as the work remains meaningful.
  • The pace and duration of therapy are always guided by your needs.

Your Counseling Experience

Effective trauma therapy depends on emotional safety, attunement, and respect for your nervous system’s capacity. In my private practice, care is individualized rather than protocol-driven, with attention given to both present-day symptoms and the relational and emotional contexts in which trauma developed. Our work together is shaped by:

  • Your specific trauma responses and survival patterns
  • How trauma is held in the body and nervous system
  • Your emotional history and attachment experiences
  • Your temperament, communication style, and pacing needs
  • A thoughtful integration of somatic awareness and psychodynamic exploration

The therapeutic relationship itself is central. Creating a space where you feel sufficiently supported to explore, reflect, and gently shift long-standing trauma responses is an essential part of the process.

Support Between Sessions

Therapy is the primary space for working with trauma, though some people benefit from gentle, supportive practices between sessions. These are not intended to push healing or override trauma responses, but to offer moments of grounding, regulation, and safety in daily life. Supportive practices may include:

  • Body-based or mindfulness practices focused on present-moment awareness
  • Gentle movement, such as yoga, approached without performance pressure
  • Time in nature to support nervous system settling
  • Slow, conscious breathing with an emphasis on extended exhalation
  • Nourishing movement, rest, and nutrition approached with consistency rather than rigidity

These practices are optional and explored with care. The intention is not to add more to your plate, but to support a growing sense of internal steadiness, safety, and ease.

FAQs About Trauma

Trauma can exist consciously and subconsciously, surfacing at seemingly random times and not for extended periods. The complexity of how each individual copes with traumatic events makes it extremely possible for you to be experiencing a reaction to a long past event.

That is oftentimes the case. As humans, we attempt to normalize disturbing occurrences, oftentimes even completely dissociating from them (blocking them out). Becoming aware of the existence of trauma in our past can lead to symptoms and experiences that never surfaced before. This is normal and can be delved into in treatment.

Our main therapeutic goal is to help you separate who you are from what happened to you. The keywords here are ‘happened to you’. Yes, this trauma feels like a part of who you are, your identity even, but it’s important in your healing journey to mindfully remove these events and see them as just that. It may seem impossible now, but we can help you do this.

Symptoms of trauma can arise in various forms, one of them being anxiety and its many mind-body symptoms. Remembering or acknowledging a traumatic experience can exacerbate these symptoms and even morph them into something else. It’s possible you were prone to anxiety before your event, but it is also possible your anxiety is a direct result of it as well. Part of our therapy is to dive into the roots of your mental health battles and find how they’ve grown within you, eventually separating them from your sense of self.

Trauma therapy is a long and winding road with the end goal of a healthier you. It is absolutely possible to reach a state of well-being again and if you are feeling a sense of hopelessness, that is a strong sign that it’s time to seek outside assistance.