Unresolved trauma therapy

Here's the thing - unresolved trauma doesn't always look like what you'd expect. You might not have a single dramatic event you can point to. Instead, you might find yourself getting disproportionately upset when someone criticizes you, shutting down completely during conflict, or feeling like you're constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Maybe you notice yourself repeating the same relationship patterns over and over, choosing partners who aren't good for you, or struggling with boundaries in ways that leave you feeling resentful. Perhaps small things trigger big reactions - someone raises their voice and suddenly you're eight years old again, feeling powerless and overwhelmed.

Unresolved trauma often shows up as anxiety that doesn't have an obvious cause, difficulty trusting people even when they've given you no reason not to, or that nagging feeling that you're just never quite enough. You might catch yourself saying the exact words your parents used to say - the ones that made you feel small - and you literally want to crawl out of your own skin.

If you're constantly exhausted from overthinking every interaction, if you find yourself reacting instead of responding, or if you can see the pattern but can't seem to stop it - these are all signs that past experiences might still be affecting you in the present. And here's what I want you to know: recognizing these patterns is the first step toward healing them.

If you've ever found yourself thinking "Why am I so upset about this? This is ridiculous," you're not alone - and you're definitely not ridiculous. When you have an outsized reaction to something seemingly small, it's usually because that "small thing" has triggered something much bigger from your past.

Your brain is incredibly smart (sometimes too smart for its own good). When something in your present resembles a threatening or painful situation from your past, your nervous system can react as if the original trauma is happening right now. It's not that you're overreacting - it's that you're reacting to both the present situation AND the unresolved experience it's reminding you of.

For example, maybe your partner forgets to text you back and you spiral into panic, convinced they're going to leave you. The reality? Your nervous system remembers being abandoned or emotionally neglected as a child, and that old wound gets activated. Or perhaps your boss gives you minor feedback and you feel like a complete failure - because that criticism is hitting the same nerve as the chronic invalidation you experienced growing up.

The good news is that once we understand what's actually triggering you, we can work on processing those old experiences so they stop hijacking your present. Through trauma therapy approaches and the insight work we do in psychodynamic therapy, you can learn to respond to situations based on what's actually happening now - not what happened then.

The short answer? Absolutely yes. And honestly? For most people, childhood experiences are the biggest predictor of how they show up in adult life - in relationships, at work, in parenting, everywhere.

Here's what happens: when you're a kid, your brain is literally under construction. The experiences you have - especially with your primary caregivers - create neural pathways that become your default settings for how you interpret the world, how you relate to others, and how you feel about yourself. These are the things you internalize. If those early experiences involved criticism, emotional unavailability, inconsistency, or outright abuse, those patterns don't just disappear when you turn 18.

You might find yourself choosing partners who are emotionally unavailable (just like mom or dad was), struggling with perfectionism because nothing you did was ever good enough, or people-pleasing to an exhausting degree because you learned early on that your needs didn't matter. Maybe you have a hair-trigger temper, difficulty trusting anyone, or you shut down emotionally when things get tough.

The frustrating part is that you can intellectually understand that your childhood wasn't healthy, but still find yourself repeating those same patterns. That's because trauma isn't just stored in your conscious mind - it's held in your nervous system, in your body, in the automatic ways you respond to stress.

But - and this is important - just because childhood trauma is still affecting you doesn't mean you're stuck with it forever. With specialized trauma therapy that addresses both the psychological and physiological aspects of trauma, you absolutely can heal these old wounds and create new, healthier patterns. That's exactly what we'll work on together.

If you've ever caught yourself thinking "Why do I keep choosing people who treat me this way?" or "I swore I'd never be like my parents, but here I am doing the exact same thing," welcome to one of the most frustrating parts of unresolved trauma.

Here's what's happening: your brain is trying to resolve something from your past by recreating similar situations in the present. It's like your psyche is saying "Maybe this time it will be different, maybe this time I'll get the love/validation/safety I needed back then."

Spoiler alert: it usually doesn't work out that way.

Repetition compulsion is the psychological term for this, but basically it means we unconsciously seek out familiar dynamics - even painful ones - because they're what we know. If you grew up with a critical parent, you might find yourself drawn to partners or bosses who are equally critical. If you experienced emotional neglect, you might keep choosing people who are emotionally unavailable. It feels confusing because consciously you want something different, but unconsciously you're drawn to what feels familiar.

The other piece is that unresolved trauma can wire your brain to believe certain things about yourself and relationships. If you internalized the belief that "I'm not worthy of love" or "I have to be perfect to be accepted," you'll unconsciously act in ways that confirm those beliefs - pushing away people who treat you well, sabotaging good relationships, or accepting treatment that's beneath what you deserve.

In our work together, we'll explore these patterns, understand where they came from, and - most importantly - help you create new neural pathways that align with who you want to be and the relationships you actually want to have. You're not destined to repeat these cycles forever.

This is a question I get asked all the time, and honestly, there's a lot of overlap - but there are some important distinctions.

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a specific diagnosis that typically follows a clearly identifiable traumatic event - think combat exposure, sexual assault, serious accidents, or natural disasters. With PTSD, you'll often experience flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and intense anxiety related to that specific event.

Unresolved trauma, on the other hand, can be more complex and harder to pin down. It often involves repeated or chronic experiences over time rather than a single incident. Maybe you grew up with emotional neglect, chronic criticism, inconsistent parenting, or the stress of living in a chaotic household. These experiences might not fit the technical definition of "trauma," but they still leave deep wounds that affect how you function in the world.

Here's what makes unresolved trauma tricky: you might not even recognize your experiences as trauma or traumatic. You might think "Well, it wasn't that bad" or "Other people had it worse." But if your past is still affecting your present - if you're stuck in patterns you can't break, if you're triggered by things that don't make logical sense, if you struggle with anxiety, relationships, or trust - that's unresolved trauma showing up.

The good news? The therapeutic approaches I use - EMDR, ART, psychodynamic therapy, CBT, and REBT - are effective for both PTSD and unresolved trauma. We don't need to put a specific label on your experience to do the healing work (and you might know by now that I don't love those labels anyway). What matters is that we address what's keeping you stuck and help you move forward.

Short answer: Not if you don't want to. And definitely not before you're ready.

Here's what I want you to understand about trauma therapy with me: I'm never going to push you to talk about anything you're not comfortable with. Healing happens when you feel safe, and forcing you to recount painful memories in graphic detail before you're ready isn't healing - it's retraumatizing.

If you don't want to talk about those things, one of the beautiful things about EMDR and ART (two of the trauma modalities I am trained in) is that they don't require you to talk through every painful detail of what happened. With ART especially, you can process and heal from traumatic experiences without having to verbally describe them at all. You can keep the specifics to yourself while still getting the healing benefits of the therapy.

That said, some level of context is usually helpful so I can understand what we're working with and tailor our approach to your specific needs. But there's a huge difference between giving me the general outline of what happened ("I grew up with a lot of criticism" or "I experienced emotional neglect") versus having to relive every painful moment in vivid detail.

We'll move at your pace. Some clients want to talk through their experiences in depth because it helps them make sense of things. Others prefer to keep the details minimal and focus on how those experiences are affecting them now. Both approaches are valid, and we'll figure out what feels right for you.

What I can promise is that our work together will always be done in a way that feels safe and manageable. If you're feeling overwhelmed, we'll slow down. If you need to take a break from the heavy stuff, we'll shift gears. This is your therapy, and you're always in control of how we proceed.

Oh, this is a big one. Unresolved trauma doesn't just affect how you feel - it profoundly impacts how you connect (or struggle to connect) with others. And often, relationship problems are the thing that finally brings people to trauma therapy, even if they don't initially realize that's what they're dealing with.

If you have unresolved trauma, you might find yourself pushing people away just when they're getting close, because vulnerability feels terrifying. Or maybe you do the opposite - you become overly clingy and anxious, constantly needing reassurance that they're not going to leave. You might struggle to trust anyone, even when they've given you no reason not to, or you might ignore red flags and stay in relationships that aren't healthy because being alone feels worse or scarier to do.

Unresolved trauma can make you hypervigilant about rejection, causing you to interpret neutral interactions as personal attacks. Your partner forgets to text you back and you immediately assume they don't care about you. A friend cancels plans and you're convinced they're done with you. These reactions are your nervous system trying to protect you from getting hurt again, but they end up creating the very distance you're afraid of.

You might also find yourself repeating relationship patterns from your family of origin - maybe you're always the caretaker, sacrificing your own needs to keep the peace (just like you did as a kid), or maybe you shut down during conflict because that's how you learned to survive. Perhaps you choose partners who are critical or emotionally unavailable because that's what feels familiar, even though it's exactly what you're trying to escape.

The beautiful part about doing trauma work is that as you heal these old wounds, your relationships naturally start to shift. You'll develop healthier boundaries, respond from a place of security rather than fear, and be able to show up authentically without constantly protecting yourself from imagined threats. You'll break those patterns that have been keeping you stuck and start creating the kinds of connections you actually want.

Here's what I want you to hear loud and clear: Yes, absolutely, 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt you can break generational patterns. Being aware that you don't want to repeat what was done to you is already a huge first step that many people never take.

If you grew up in a household where emotions weren't allowed, where criticism was constant, where you had to walk on eggshells, or where your needs consistently came last - you learned those patterns intimately. And now, even though you intellectually know you want to do things differently, you might catch yourself defaulting to what you know. You snap at your kids the way your parents snapped at you. You criticize yourself with the same harsh voice you heard growing up. You struggle to set boundaries because you never learned how.

But here's the thing about breaking cycles: it's not about being perfect. It's not about never making mistakes or never showing up in ways that remind you of your family. Breaking generational patterns is about awareness, accountability, and actively choosing to respond differently - even when it feels uncomfortable, even when it goes against everything you learned.

In our work together, we'll do several things. First, we'll identify the specific patterns you want to break - not in a blaming way, but in an understanding way. We'll explore how these patterns developed, what purpose they served in your family system, and why they no longer serve you. Then we'll work on developing new neural pathways - literally rewiring your brain to create healthier default responses.

We'll also address the underlying trauma that keeps these patterns in place. Because here's what I've learned: you can know intellectually that you want to do things differently, but until you heal the wounds driving those patterns, they'll keep showing up. That's where EMDR, ART, and our deeper psychodynamic work comes in.

You're not destined to repeat anything. You're a cycle breaker, and that takes incredible courage. Your willingness to do this work - to look at painful patterns, to heal old wounds, to choose something different - that's already breaking the cycle. And when you heal, you're not just changing your own life. You're potentially changing the trajectory for your children, your relationships, and everyone you touch.

I'm going to be real with you - trauma therapy with me doesn't look like what you might expect from traditional therapy. I'm not going to sit there with a blank face, nodding silently while you pour your heart out. That's not how healing happens, at least not in my office.

When you work with me, you'll get someone who shows up as a whole person - warm, engaged, authentic, and genuinely invested in your healing. I might laugh with you about life's absurdities one minute and hold space for your deepest pain the next. I'll challenge you when I see you getting in your own way, validate you when you need it most, and probably swear at least once if the situation calls for it.

In terms of structure, we'll typically meet weekly for 50-minute sessions. Some clients like having a regular time slot each week; others prefer scheduling as we go. We'll figure out what works best for your life and schedule.

Our first few sessions will be about understanding your story - not in a way that requires you to relive every painful detail, but enough for me to understand what patterns we're working with and what's keeping you stuck. From there, we'll create a personalized approach that might include psychodynamic exploration, practical CBT strategies, EMDR or ART for processing traumatic memories, or some combination depending on what you need.

Some sessions will be intense - the kind where you're doing deep processing work and might feel emotionally exhausted afterward (in a good way). Other sessions might be lighter - checking in on how you're doing, celebrating wins, troubleshooting challenges that came up during the week. I follow your lead and adapt to what you need in any given session.

What I can promise is that you'll always feel heard, seen, and understood. You'll get honest feedback (I'll never just tell you what you want to hear), practical tools you can use between sessions, and a therapeutic relationship that feels real and authentic. Because at the end of the day, healing happens in the context of a genuine human connection - and that's exactly what I offer.