Complex Trauma

Not all trauma looks the same. While some people experience a single overwhelming event, many carry the effects of complex trauma—the kind that happens over time, often in relationships where you should have been safe. Childhood neglect, emotional abuse, unstable caregivers, chronic invalidation—these experiences don’t leave a single wound. They shape the way you see yourself, connect with others, and move through the world.

If you’ve ever wondered why you struggle to trust, why your nervous system seems stuck on high alert (or shut down entirely), or why patterns you thought you’d outgrown keep showing up in your closest relationships—complex trauma may be part of your story.

How complex trauma shows up:

  • Relational patterns that feel impossible to break — attracting the same dynamics, over-functioning for others, or finding intimacy terrifying
  • A nervous system that won’t settle — chronic anxiety, hypervigilance, emotional flooding, or the opposite: numbness and disconnection
  • Parts of yourself that feel at war — inner critics, protective walls, shame that doesn’t match your logic
  • Dissociation or feeling unreal — spacing out, losing time, feeling detached from your body or emotions
  • Difficulty knowing what you feel or need — a sense that your own internal world is hard to access or trust

My approach to complex trauma:

Healing complex trauma requires more than insight—it requires working with the body, the nervous system, and the relational patterns that got wired in long ago. I’ve invested deeply in specialized training to offer this kind of care:

  • Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) — an evidence-based modality that allows you to reprocess traumatic memories quickly, often without having to verbally relive painful details
  • Dissociation & Complex Trauma training — specialized work in understanding and treating the fragmentation that can result from prolonged traumatic stress
  • Transform Trauma Masters Event (Oxford) — advanced training in Healing Our Relational World, deepening my understanding of how trauma lives in our connections and how healing happens there too
  • Polyvagal theory — the science of how your nervous system responds to safety and threat, and how to help it find regulation again
  • Janina Fisher’s trauma model — a compassionate framework for understanding how trauma creates inner fragmentation and how to work with protective parts without pathologizing them

What healing looks like:

Complex trauma didn’t happen in isolation, and it doesn’t heal in isolation either. Our work together will be relational—a space where you can begin to experience what it feels like to be truly seen, to have your nervous system settle in the presence of another person, and to slowly rewrite the old stories your body has been carrying.

This isn’t about rushing through your pain or “getting over” your past. It’s about building the capacity to be present in your own life—in your body, in your relationships, and in the future you’re creating.