Specialty
Complex PTSD & Childhood Trauma Therapy
When the trauma was not one event but many
Not all trauma comes from a single moment. For many people, it was the water they grew up swimming in, repeated abuse, a home that never felt safe or predictable, fear that became a constant companion, painful experiences that accumulated year after year. *
When trauma happens over time, especially in childhood, its effects tend to reach further. It can shape how you see yourself, how safe you feel with other people, how you handle emotions, and whether you believe you deserve care at all. You may function well on the outside while carrying a deep sense that something is wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you, repeatedly, and you adapted to survive it. *
Those adaptations, staying hypervigilant, keeping people at a distance, silencing your own needs, made sense then. Now they may be the very things standing between you and the life you want. *
Healing from cumulative trauma is slower and deeper work than recovering from a single event, and it is absolutely possible. Many people emerge not just with fewer symptoms, but with a fundamentally kinder relationship to themselves. *
Signs complex ptsd & childhood trauma may be affecting your life
- A persistent feeling of being unsafe, even in safe situations
- Deep shame or a sense of being fundamentally flawed
- Difficulty trusting people or letting anyone get close
- Emotions that feel overwhelming, or hard to feel at all
- Being extremely attuned to other people’s moods and needs
- Harsh self-criticism that never lets up
- Feeling disconnected from your body or from yourself
- Difficulty remembering parts of your childhood
- Relationships that repeat painful patterns from the past
- Exhaustion from always being on guard
- A sense that you missed out on a real childhood
Our approach to complex ptsd & childhood trauma
When trauma was repeated and prolonged, treatment cannot simply target one memory. We begin by building safety, stability, and skills for managing overwhelming emotions, regulation always comes before reprocessing. This foundation is not a delay in the real work. It is the real work, and it is what makes the deeper work possible. *
As you feel steadier, we carefully work with the experiences themselves. EMDR can help reprocess specific painful memories. Somatic and experiential approaches address the ways trauma lives in the body and in long-standing patterns of protection. Throughout, the therapy relationship itself, consistent, respectful, attuned to your pace, becomes part of how safety is relearned. *
The goal is meaningful and lasting change: not just fewer symptoms, but a growing sense that you are safe, that your feelings make sense, and that you get to have a life that is more than survival. *
Clinicians who specialize in complex ptsd & childhood trauma
EMDR · Hypnosis · Psychodynamic
Dr. Zala specializes in complex PTSD and cumulative relational trauma. She has particular depth working with adults who grew up with emotionally abusive or narcissistic parents, or who were parentified, carrying adult responsibilities and emotional burdens long before they should have. *
Full profile →
EMDR · Hypnosis · Psychodynamic
Dr. Zylstra focuses on childhood and family-of-origin trauma. He works with adults who grew up in chaotic households, lived with a parent’s addiction, lost a parent early in life, or experienced physical abuse as children, helping them make sense of how those early years still shape the present. *
Full profile →
EMDR · Hypnosis · Insight-Oriented Therapy
Dr. Citrin works with developmental trauma, including growing up with emotionally abusive parents, childhood physical abuse, and the early loss of a parent. She brings broad trauma expertise to the careful, paced work these experiences call for. *
Full profile →Modalities
Therapy approaches that may help
We integrate these techniques, custom-tailored to you, in the order your nervous system can use first.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
- How is trauma from childhood different from trauma after a single event?
- A single-event trauma tends to produce focused symptoms tied to that memory. Trauma that was repeated over time, especially in childhood, tends to shape broader patterns: how you regulate emotions, how you see yourself, and how safe relationships feel. Treatment for cumulative trauma is typically more gradual and relational, though both respond well to therapy. *
- I do not remember much of my childhood. Can therapy still help?
- Yes. Patchy childhood memory is common after difficult early years, and therapy does not require a complete timeline. We work with what you do remember, with the patterns showing up in your life now, and with what your body and emotions carry. Understanding and healing do not depend on recovering every memory. *
- My childhood was not as bad as some people’s. Do I still count?
- Comparing pain is one of the most common ways people talk themselves out of getting help. What matters is not how your experience ranks against anyone else’s, but how it affected you and how it is affecting you now. If your early years left marks you can still feel, that is reason enough. *
- Why does therapy for this take longer?
- Because the trauma was woven through years of your life, not confined to one event. We first build the safety and emotional footing that childhood may not have provided, then work through the experiences themselves at a pace you can genuinely tolerate. Rushing this work tends to backfire, and going steadily tends to last. *
- Will I have to confront my family?
- No. This therapy is about your healing, not about confrontation. Some people eventually choose to change how they relate to family members, set new boundaries, or have honest conversations, and others do not. Those are your decisions, made in your own time, and therapy supports you either way. *
- What approaches do you use for cumulative trauma?
- We integrate evidence-based approaches around your needs: skills for regulating emotions and feeling grounded, EMDR for reprocessing specific painful memories, and somatic and experiential work for the ways trauma lives in the body and in relationships. Regulation and safety always come before deeper reprocessing. *
Related specialties