When past experiences or wounds impact your daily life, it can be hard to relax, trust, or feel fully present. It feels like your nervous system is always scanning for something: danger, disappointment, disconnection. You might be the one everyone leans on, but underneath, there's tension that doesn’t go away. You overthink things, stay busy to avoid feelings, or struggle to let your guard down with people you care about.
These are often protective strategies your nervous system developed in response to overwhelming or confusing experiences. That’s trauma, not always something big or obvious, but something that made you feel unsafe, unseen, or alone in a moment when you really needed support.
Trauma therapy is a space to understand those patterns, reconnect with yourself, and feel more at ease in your life and relationships.
Understanding Trauma Through a New Lens
Trauma isn’t just about what happened, it’s about how your body responded when something overwhelmed your ability to cope. Sometimes trauma comes from a single, identifiable event. Other times, it stems from ongoing experiences like emotional neglect, growing up in a chaotic or critical household, or having to be the strong one in your family. Trauma doesn’t always leave obvious scars, but it commonly looks like:
- Being constantly on edge or emotionally shut down
- Difficulty trusting others or yourself
- Trouble sleeping or feeling truly rested
- Feeling like you have to stay busy to avoid your emotions
- Deep self-doubt or persistent shame
- Struggles with boundaries, people-pleasing, or perfectionism
- Emotional overreactions that don’t make sense to you, or emotional numbness
- Feeling disconnected from others, your body, or your own needs
When unresolved past hurts show up in these ways, it doesn’t mean you’re broken or a failure. It’s your body’s way of trying to protect you and letting you know that you need support.
How Trauma Therapy Can Help
In our work together, we’ll move at a pace that feels safe for you. I’ll help you tune into the wisdom of your body, understand the patterns you’ve developed to survive, and gently begin to shift them.
Trauma therapy can help you understand how your past may be impacting your present, and move forward with more understanding, calm, and self-trust.
I integrate evidence-based approaches, including:
Psychodynamic and attachment-based therapy to explore how early relationships and experiences shape your beliefs, behaviors, and emotional patterns.
Mindfulness and nervous system regulation practices to help you reconnect with your body and find steadiness in the moment.
Cognitive and behavioral tools to work with anxiety, self-doubt, and negative thinking that keep you feeling stuck.
My style is relational, warm, and engaged. I’ll meet you where you are to help you explore, uncover your strengths, and move toward your goals.
You Don’t Have to Have All the Answers to Start
Many of my clients begin trauma therapy, not entirely sure if what they experienced “counts” as trauma. Others have lived in survival mode for a long time and only recently started noticing the toll it’s taken. You don’t need a diagnosis or a tidy story to benefit from this work.
What matters is that something inside you knows it’s time to try a different way.
If you’ve been living in survival mode for a long time, trauma therapy can be a place to finally exhale. A space to explore not only what hurts, but also what’s possible when healing begins.
Trauma Therapy for the Whole You
Trauma affects more than just your thoughts. It shows up in your body, your relationships, your ability to feel safe, and even in how you relate to yourself. That’s why trauma therapy needs to care for the whole you, not just the part that can explain what happened, but the part that is still in it.
In our work together, we’ll make space for both insight and integration. That means we’ll explore your story gently, at your pace, and build practical tools to help you feel more present, connected, and in control. You don’t have to relive every painful detail for this work to be meaningful.
Sometimes the healing happens in the small moments when:
You say something you’ve never said out loud before.
You realize a feeling you’ve carried wasn’t yours to hold.
You respond differently to something that once overwhelmed you.
What is important is that we go at your pace and work together in a way that feels collaborative and empowering to you.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If you have questions or would like to start trauma therapy, please schedule a free 15-minute consultation. Whether you’re processing something specific or just starting to understand the weight you’ve been carrying, this space is for you.
Trauma therapy is available across Illinois and PSYPACT states.