Therapy for ptsd + trauma in Murrieta, CA and online
Evidence-Based Trauma Therapy In California
Trauma + Attachment-Focused EMDR and IFS Therapy for an evidence-based and effective approach to trauma recovery.
There's No Clear "Before and After"
WHAT IF…
Instead, it was:
The feeling that love was conditional — earned through achievement, caretaking, or staying small
Learning early to read the room, manage others' emotions, or be the responsible one
A family that looked fine from the outside but taught you to hide your needs, stay hypervigilant, or never ask for help
Relationships where you absorbed blame, apologized for things that weren't your fault, or felt like you had to earn your place
That’s complex trauma
You might not call it "trauma" — but your nervous system remembers.
Complex trauma can come from what happened repeatedly, what didn’t happen when you needed it, or what you had to become in order to feel safe, loved, or accepted.
Emotional neglect, conditional love, parentification, unpredictability, criticism, or simply not having enough room for your feelings and needs can shape how you see yourself and relate to other people long after it’s over.
And now, you notice:
You scan faces, tone, or body language for signs something is wrong.
You feel responsible for other people’s moods or reactions.
Conflict can make you panic, freeze, go blank, or suddenly feel much younger.
You have trouble remembering parts of your past clearly, or remember them more as sensations than stories.
You can know you’re safe and still feel braced for what comes next.
You may have talked about it, read about it, or spent years trying to forget. But the minute you slow down or are reminded of the past, you feel like you’re right back where you started.
What it’s like to work with me
We Don’t Just Talk About What Happened.
We Change How It Impacts You Now.
Trauma therapy isn’t about making you tell the whole story in perfect order or relive every painful detail.
We may work with a specific memory. We may start with something happening now—a body reaction, a recurring trigger, an image, a belief about yourself, or the moment you suddenly go blank.
Sometimes there are words. Sometimes there aren’t.
The work can include helping your system separate what is happening now from what it learned to expect then, processing experiences that still carry emotional charge, and building more capacity to stay present when something difficult comes up.
I draw from EMDR, IFS, and somatic therapy depending on what fits the person and the work.
So you can sleep, connect, make decisions, go places, and live your life without the past calling the shots.
Imagine…
Feeling present instead of numb, or detached.
Not constantly bracing for the next criticism or disappointment.
Feeling without being overwhelmed by your emotions
Doing and enjoying things you’ve been avoiding
Triggers no longer take days to recover from
BOOK FREE CONSULT
BOOK FREE CONSULT
Ready to Find a Different Way Forward?
faqs
Therapy for Trauma & PTSD
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You don’t need to prove that what happened was bad enough.
Trauma is not defined only by the event itself. What matters is how the experience affected you and what your system had available to cope with it at the time. A car accident or assault may be traumatic, but so can years of criticism, emotional neglect, instability, medical procedures, frightening relationships, or having to grow up too quickly.
If something from the past is still shaping how you feel, respond, or relate to people now, we can work with it.
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That’s okay. Trauma memories are not always stored as a clear, chronological story.
You may remember certain moments vividly and have large gaps around others. Sometimes what remains is a body sensation, an image, an emotion, or a reaction that seems to come out of nowhere.
We don’t have to recover missing memories or force a complete narrative. We can start with what you do have access to now.
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Then we work with the shutdown instead of trying to push through it.
Going blank, feeling numb, losing words, becoming very distant, or feeling disconnected from your body can all be ways your system learned to protect you when something felt overwhelming.
You do not have to stay intensely connected to painful material for therapy to “work.” We can slow down, help you stay oriented to the present, and approach difficult experiences in a way your system can tolerate.
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No.
You may choose to talk about parts of what happened, but trauma therapy does not require you to describe every detail out loud. With approaches such as EMDR, IFS, and somatic therapy, we can often work with the emotions, beliefs, memories, images, and body responses connected to an experience without having you recount the entire story.
You stay in control of what you share.
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Yes, when past medical experiences or ongoing physical symptoms have also left an emotional impact.
Medical trauma can affect your sense of safety in your body, trust in providers, fear around procedures, or how your nervous system responds to pain and physical sensations. Therapy cannot treat the medical cause of chronic pain, but we can work with fear, helplessness, traumatic memories, and body-based responses connected to what you have been through.
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There isn’t one timeline.
A single, clearly defined traumatic experience may require very different work from years of relational trauma, chronic stress, or experiences that affected how you learned to relate to yourself and other people.
We’ll talk about what you want to change, what is getting in the way now, and whether weekly therapy or a more focused format makes sense. I’ll be transparent with you about what I’m seeing rather than giving you a generic timeline.
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Often, yes.
You do not have to wait until every relationship is resolved or every stressor is gone before therapy can be useful. Sometimes the work includes processing what happened. Other times we need to focus first on boundaries, safety, understanding what is happening in the present, or helping you respond differently while the situation is still unfolding.
We work with where you actually are—not where you think you’re supposed to be before therapy can begin.