You have survived. Now it's time to heal.
Somatic and relational trauma therapy for those ready to move beyond surviving — toward a life that feels safe, embodied, and genuinely alive.
What trauma actually is
Trauma is not simply what happened to you. It is what happened inside your body and nervous system when the experience overwhelmed your capacity to cope, and what has remained there since, shaping how you feel, how you relate, and how you move through the world.
This distinction matters enormously. It means that trauma is not about the size or severity of the event but about the impact. Two people can live through the same experience and be affected very differently. What determines whether something becomes traumatic is not the event itself but whether the nervous system was able to process and integrate it at the time.
When the nervous system cannot process what happened, when the experience is too overwhelming, too sudden, or too sustained, the survival energy that mobilized in response gets stuck. And it stays stuck, often for years, expressing itself as anxiety, hypervigilance, numbness, disconnection, physical symptoms, or relational patterns that feel impossible to change even when you can clearly see them.
Trauma is not a life sentence. It is an unfinished process, and with the right support, it can be completed.
Types of trauma I work with
Trauma takes many forms. You don't need a formal diagnosis or a dramatic history to be affected by it. Some of the most impactful traumas are the quietest ones.
Complex trauma (C-PTSD)
Trauma that develops from repeated or prolonged exposure to overwhelming experiences, including chronic abuse, neglect, or other sustained difficult circumstances, often beginning in childhood. C-PTSD affects sense of self, emotional regulation, and the capacity for safe relationship.
Childhood & developmental trauma
Experiences in early childhood that disrupted healthy development, including neglect, emotional unavailability, inconsistent care, or abuse. Developmental trauma is often subtle and cumulative, and its effects can be profound even when no single incident stands out as obviously traumatic.
Relational trauma
Trauma that occurs within significant relationships with caregivers, partners, or others, including abandonment, betrayal, enmeshment, emotional abuse, and chronic misattunement. Relational trauma shapes how we attach, how we trust, and how we relate to ourselves.
Shock & acute trauma
Single-incident traumas such as accidents, medical events, sudden loss, or assault that overwhelm the nervous system's capacity to cope in the moment. Even when the event is resolved externally, the body may remain in a state of activation or shutdown long after.
Intergenerational trauma
Trauma patterns, nervous system states, and relational dynamics passed down through families across generations, often without conscious awareness. What was not healed in our parents and grandparents can live in our own bodies and behaviors.
Collective & systemic trauma
The impact of living within systems of oppression, racism, marginalization, or injustice, including the cumulative stress of navigating a world that does not consistently affirm your safety or dignity. I hold conscious awareness of how systemic harm shapes individual experience.
Signs you may be carrying unresolved trauma
Unresolved trauma doesn't always look like flashbacks or obvious distress. It often shows up in quieter, more chronic ways: patterns that feel like just the way you are, rather than responses to something that happened.
Chronic anxiety, hypervigilance, or a persistent sense that something is wrong, even when things are objectively fine
Numbness, flatness, or a sense of disconnection from yourself, your body, or your life
Physical symptoms such as chronic tension, fatigue, digestive issues, or headaches without a clear medical explanation
Difficulty feeling safe in relationships, or swinging between closeness and distance without knowing why
Emotional responses that feel disproportionate: reactions that are bigger or smaller than the situation seems to warrant
Difficulty being present, or a sense of going through the motions and feeling more comfortable in your head than in your body
Repeating patterns in relationships or situations that you can see clearly but can't seem to change
A sense that you understand what happened to you, but that understanding hasn't changed how you feel in your body
Why somatic therapy is uniquely suited to trauma
Talk therapy is valuable. It helps us make meaning, build insight, and understand our patterns. But trauma isn't stored primarily in the narrative. It's stored in the nervous system, in the body, in the patterns of activation and shutdown that operate largely below the level of conscious thought. This is why understanding what happened is often not enough to change how we feel.
Somatic approaches work directly with the body and nervous system, with what is happening right now in this moment and in this session, rather than asking you to retell your story. They help the body complete the survival responses that were interrupted at the time of the overwhelming experience, allowing the nervous system to return to a more flexible, regulated baseline.
This is the difference between understanding trauma and actually healing it, and it is the central premise of all the work I do.
How SE and PIT work together for trauma
Trauma lives at multiple levels simultaneously: in the nervous system and body, and in the relational patterns and early wounds that formed in response to it. The most effective trauma treatment addresses both levels at once. This is why I integrate Somatic Experiencing and Post Induction Therapy as complementary approaches.
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, SE works directly with the nervous system to help the body complete and release the stuck survival responses that underlie trauma symptoms. Rather than retelling what happened, we work with what your body is doing right now, gently, carefully, at the pace your system can hold.
Learn more about SE →Post Induction Therapy (PIT)
Developed by Pia Mellody at The Meadows, PIT addresses the relational and developmental wounds that so often sit at the root of complex trauma. The childhood experiences that shaped how you see yourself, how you attach, and how you move through relationships. It works experientially, at the level where patterns actually change.
Learn more about PIT →SE creates the nervous system safety that makes the deeper relational work of PIT possible. PIT addresses the childhood wounds that SE alone cannot fully reach. Together they offer what trauma treatment at its most comprehensive can provide: healing at the level of the body, the relational self, and the early experiences that shaped both.
FAQs
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No. Somatic Experiencing in particular works with the body's present-moment experience rather than requiring you to retell or relive traumatic events in detail. You control how much you share and when. Many clients find it a relief to work with trauma without having to narrate it exhaustively.
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Yes — and this is one of the most common experiences people bring to somatic trauma work. Talk therapy builds insight and is genuinely valuable. But trauma is also stored somatically, in the nervous system and body, and insight alone often can't reach it. Somatic Experiencing works at the physiological level where the real blockage tends to be — which is why many people experience significant shifts after years of feeling stuck in more conventional approaches.
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You don't need a clear memory or a dramatic story to benefit from trauma therapy. Many forms of developmental and relational trauma are cumulative rather than event-based — they are the result of what happened repeatedly over time, or what consistently didn't happen, rather than a single identifiable incident. If the signs resonate, that's enough to begin.
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Yes — when approached carefully and with proper training. The foundational principle of Somatic Experiencing is titration — working in small, manageable doses that stay within your window of tolerance rather than flooding or retraumatizing. You are always in control of what we explore and when, and we build capacity and internal resources before approaching more difficult material.
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It varies significantly depending on the nature and extent of the trauma, your goals, and your nervous system's pace. Some clients notice meaningful shifts within a few months. Complex or developmental trauma — particularly when it began early and was sustained over time — often benefits from longer-term work. We'll check in regularly on your progress and I'll always be honest with you about where we are.
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Yes. Somatic Experiencing translates effectively to telehealth — what matters most is the quality of the relational container and the attunement between therapist and client, both of which are fully present via video. I offer trauma therapy via telehealth throughout California, with in-person sessions available in the Northeast Los Angeles area.
You don't have to keep carrying this alone.
If something here resonated, if you recognized yourself in the signs or felt something shift reading about what trauma actually is, I'd love to connect. Schedule a free 20-minute consultation and we'll talk about what you're carrying and whether working together might be the right next step.