Psychotherapist Helping Others

Trauma Therapy

• Offering trauma treatment to the community of Boulder and the surrounding areas.

• Trauma therapy that takes a compassionate and understanding approach, working with you to create a better life.

• A trauma therapist with over a decade of experience helping people.

Trauma’s don’t always fade with time. They can often linger long after their occurrence, taking both an emotional and physical toll that seems impossible to recover from. Our feelings about a trauma, whether they be grief, hopelessness, resentment, anger or shame, may manifest themselves as both mental and-or physical stress that taxes everyday life. Seemingly mundane tasks may be invaded by traumatic experiences without an obvious cause. And this may happen so much so that you avoid routine events—family gatherings, daytrips, your child’s soccer game—because you fear a traumatic memory may strike. Your life becomes a constant worry. And escaping the cycle of negative thinking feels impossible to escape from because you don’t know how to begin to address the underlying issues causing your trauma.

It’s not easy to live with the memory of a traumatic experience. It can be exhausting, even terrifying to confront the experience. The pervasiveness of a traumatic experience may even interfere with your moment-to-moment life, meaning you’re never truly present in your own life. Instead, your trapped in a negative loop. That makes it difficult to connect with the world around you, including work, loved ones, and friends. And they struggle to understand.

Dread and anxiety may fill your day like an oppressive fog.

No two traumatic experiences unfold in the same way. They affect everyone differently and appear in too many forms to capture with one term. Traumas may be a consequence of a single event, such as an automobile accident, natural disaster, or other instance that lingers long after it ends. Or, it be the results of continuous exposure, such as discrimination, abuse, neglect, or bullying. What needs to be recognized is that our reactions to trauma don’t end when the event has passed. They linger long after, and may affect all aspects of your life, including your mental and physical wellbeing.

Being affected by a traumatic experience does not make you any less of a person. Nor are you stuck feeling haunted by a past trauma. There’s nothing wrong with you. And you’re not alone. All of us undergo experiences that can be too much for us to endure. But, through trauma counseling you can learn and practice strategies that will help you take control away from traumas and reconnect with your life.

Trauma therapy helps you alleviate the symptoms of a distressing experience through compassion and understanding to live the fulfilling life you deserve. My approach to therapy offers strategies that fit you, the individual—not the symptoms of your trauma. Together, we’ll recognize, deconstruct, and address your trauma and its consequences. You don’t need to feel like a weight is preventing you from living your life. Through smart therapy you will develop the self-reliance and self-compassion that cultivate your life’s goals and help your pursue them, rather than being held back by fear and stress.

At the center of my practice is the conviction that all people, no matter what they have suffered, have the inner strength to confront their traumas and lead a better life. And to do so, you will learn how to bring awareness to both your mind and body, to track the sequence of thoughts that lead up to a traumatic experience. At the same time, you’ll learn how to tune into your body. Becoming familiar with both mind and body will help you understand the relationship between the two, so that you see how thoughts, feelings, and sensations are all intertwined. See this relationship builds trust which is the first step in healing from a trauma.

It’s my goal to not only guide you through the process of recovery but teach along the way so that you can take our time together beyond our sessions and apply its lessons to the rest of your life.

Chronic discomfort as a result of a traumatic experience does not have to be a prison experience. The pains and stresses can be understood, controlled, and overcome. Guidance and support is available. It all begins with a single step. Then the road to self-acceptance lies open before you.

If you have further concerns about trauma therapy I understand and hope to alleviate them...

Memory isn’t only what we consciously remember. Who we are today is the sum-total of our experiences, both those moments that we recall vividly and those that linger in a haze. No matter how those experiences are stored they will find a means of expressing themselves, and if its a traumatic experience it may present itself as a physical or mental toll. But you don’t need to remember every detail of an event to work through a path to healing.

Oftentimes people who try to bury their traumas end up suffering physical pain. That’s because our unconscious goes to great lengths to protect us. So much so, that in the name of protection are unconscious ends up hurting us. When we don’t face the underlying trauma it may manifest itself as aches, pains, headaches, etc. Tackling the underlying trauma is the only way to relieve the physical symptoms, without resorting to medication to treat the symptoms rather than the cause. And managing symptoms becomes a game of dosage increases over time without ever truly improving.

It’s always possible to find someone, somewhere who we see as worse off than we are. But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the same opportunity to heal as they do. Don’t write yourself off. Everybody, no matter who they are, deserves the best possible life. That means altering your relationship with your past, to forge a new, positive, path for the future.

I invite you to call me at (720) 370-3272 for a phone consultation to discuss your specific needs and any questions you have about anxiety disorders, therapy and my practice.

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