Trauma • PTSD • CPTSD
Your brain did
what it had to do
to keep you safe.
Trauma responses usually make sense in context. Your brain and body learned how to protect you when something felt unsafe, overwhelming, or out of your control. The problem is that those survival responses can keep showing up long after the danger is over. Therapy can help you understand what your system learned, work through what happened, and build more choice in how you respond now.
Now we can help it learn that it’s safe to live.
Real answers.
Real healing.
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What trauma + PTSD can look like.
Trauma can affect the way your brain and body make sense of the world. When something feels overwhelming or unsafe, your system may shift into survival mode to help protect you.
For some people, those responses settle once the danger has passed. For others, they keep showing up long after the experience is over.
PTSD can develop after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Symptoms are generally grouped into four main areas:
Intrusion
Unwanted memories, nightmares, flashbacks, or strong emotional or physical reactions to reminders of what happened.
Avoidance
Avoiding people, places, thoughts, feelings, or conversations that bring the traumatic experience back up.
Changes in Mood + Thinking
Feeling numb or disconnected, negative beliefs about yourself or the world, memory gaps, shame, or difficulty feeling positive emotions.
Changes in Arousal + Reactivity
Feeling constantly on edge, easily startled, irritable, having trouble sleeping or concentrating, or always scanning for danger.
Not everyone experiences every symptom, and trauma can look very different depending on the person, the experience, and what came after it.
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PTSD vs. CPTSD:
what’s the difference?
PTSD and Complex PTSD overlap in a lot of ways. Both can involve intrusive memories, avoidance, changes in mood and thinking, and a nervous system that stays on high alert.
CPTSD includes those core trauma symptoms plus additional difficulties that are often associated with repeated, prolonged, or interpersonal trauma.
One of the biggest differences is that CPTSD tends to affect not only how someone responds to reminders of trauma, but also how they relate to their emotions, themselves, and other people.
A note about diagnosis
CPTSD is recognized as a diagnosis in the ICD-11. It is not currently a separate diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR, which is the diagnostic manual commonly used in the United States. That doesn’t make the experience any less real — it simply means the diagnostic systems describe it differently.
In addition to the core PTSD symptoms, CPTSD includes three areas often referred to as disturbances in self-organization:
Emotional Regulation
Difficulty managing intense emotions, feeling easily overwhelmed, shutting down, or having a hard time returning to baseline after something upsetting happens.
Negative Self-Concept
Persistent feelings of shame, worthlessness, failure, or the belief that something is fundamentally wrong with you.
Relationship Difficulties
Difficulty trusting other people, feeling safe in relationships, maintaining closeness, setting boundaries, or finding yourself repeating painful relationship patterns.
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What trauma therapy looks like.
Trauma therapy isn’t about forcing you to relive everything that happened or pushing you into memories before you’re ready.
The work starts with understanding what your system is doing now, building enough safety and stability to do deeper work, and moving at a pace that feels manageable.
You’re not just along for the ride. We make decisions about the work together.
Our Approach
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Safety + Stabilization Building coping skills, emotional regulation, and a stronger sense of safety in the present.
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Understanding Making sense of trauma responses, patterns, triggers, and the ways your experiences still show up.
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Processing Working through traumatic memories and beliefs when it feels appropriate and manageable.
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Integration Building self-trust, healthier relationships, boundaries, and a stronger sense of self.
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More Choice Helping you respond to life from the present instead of automatically reacting from survival mode.
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The goal isn’t to erase what happened.
Trauma therapy isn’t about pretending the past didn’t matter or becoming a completely different person. It’s about helping your nervous system respond to what’s happening now, building more choice into the way you cope, and creating enough room for your life to feel bigger than what happened to you.
You don’t need to have your whole story organized before you reach out.
Schedule a Free Consultation →