SOMATIC AND RELATIONAL TRAUMA THERAPY | LOS ANGELES AND ACROSS CALIFORNIA
You've spent a long time surviving.
It's time to start living.
Therapy for people who have been carrying something they cannot fully explain. And are ready for healing that reaches deeper.
If any of this sounds familiar, you are probably in the right place.
Something from your past keeps pulling you back. +
You've tried therapy before and still feel stuck. +
Your childhood looked 'fine' on paper. +
Something is happening in your body that won't go away. +
You keep losing yourself in relationships. +
Kayla Imhoff, MS, LMFT, SEP
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist · Somatic Experiencing Practitioner · Los Angeles, California
I came to this work because it changed my life in ways I had stopped believing were possible. I know what it is to have done the reading, the talking, the searching, and still feel like something essential is just out of reach. I know what it feels like when therapy finally works, not as management, not as coping, but as actual change at the root. That experience is what brought me here, and it is what I am here to offer.
I work at the intersection of body, psyche, and relationship, drawing on some of the most rigorous and rare training available in trauma treatment. As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Post Induction Therapy therapist trained at The Meadows, one of the country's most respected trauma and addiction treatment centers, I bring a depth of clinical grounding that is hard to find in private practice.
This work is different from most therapy, and I say that because my clients tell me so. What people often speak to first is something hard to name. A quality of presence. The experience of being in a room with someone who can feel what you are carrying, help you name it, and actually go there with you.
My approach
My approach is integrative and deeply relational. We follow what is alive in the room rather than a predetermined script. Your history, your relationships, the stories and patterns that have been shaping your life, and how all of it is showing up in the present moment.
This is not talk therapy alone. When the work goes deep, something shifts in the room. I help you access the wisdom and felt sense of your body, the patterns and sensations that have been speaking all along, and guide you through the places you have never been able to get through alone. I believe that real change happens not just through understanding, but through a felt experience of something shifting and healing what once felt frozen and immovable.
Areas I work with:
Trauma & C-PTSD (complex trauma) · Codependency · Burnout · Anxiety · Addiction recovery · Childhood wounds · Relational patterns · Post-treatment support · Unexplained physical symptoms
Core Modalities
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Somatic Experiencing (SE™)
Trauma isn't just a memory. It lives in the body as sensation, tension, and survival responses that never fully completed. This work helps your nervous system process and release what it has been carrying.
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Post Induction Therapy (PIT)
Many of the patterns that feel most stuck have their roots in early childhood wounds. This work goes there directly, helping you understand where they came from and reparent the parts still carrying them.
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Relational & Psychodynamic
Much of what shapes us operates below the surface. We bring genuine curiosity to what lives underneath your symptoms, not just the symptoms themselves.
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Meaning, depth & soul
Healing is not just about addressing what happened. It is about reconnecting with what makes you feel alive. For those drawn to it, we weave in the sacred, the symbolic, the spiritual, and a deeper relationship with yourself.
Common questions
Many of the people I work with have spent years in talk therapy and still feel stuck. That's not a reflection of their effort. Trauma and early relational wounds don't live only in memory and thought. They live in the nervous system and the body, in places that insight alone can't reach. This work goes there.
This work doesn't require any prior therapy experience and you don't need to have exhausted other options before coming here. Many people come having never been in therapy before. Others come after years of therapy that didn't reach far enough. Both are equally welcome starting points.
If you're currently working with another therapist and want to add somatic or depth-oriented work alongside that as adjunctive work, that's also possible. I'm happy to discuss what that might look like during a consultation. What matters most is that the support you have around you is actually serving your healing.
You don't need to be falling apart to begin. Many of the people I work with are high-functioning, holding it together on the outside, while quietly carrying something that never fully quiets. You don't need a diagnosis or a dramatic story. A sense that something could be different is enough.
The first session is a chance to get to know each other. We'll talk about what brings you here, what you've tried before, and what you're hoping for. There's no pressure to go anywhere you're not ready to go. By the end we'll have a sense of whether working together feels like the right fit.
I’m here to meet you, wherever you are.
Let's connect. You can share what's bringing you here and we can see if working together feels like the right fit.
Book a free consultation
Schedule a free 20-minute call directly on my calendar. We'll talk about what's bringing you here, what you're looking for in a therapist, and whether working together might be the right next step. No pressure, just a real conversation.
Book now →
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
— Pema Chödrön