Trauma and PTSD Therapy in Cleveland, Ohio
What is trauma?
Many of my clients say their experiences weren’t “bad enough” to count as trauma. However, trauma isn’t determined by the experience itself but by how it affected you. Two people can face the same situation and respond very differently. When an experience feels too overwhelming, frightening, or inescapable, it can leave an emotional wound that continues to affect how you think, feel, and respond long after the danger has passed. In fact, the word trauma comes from the Greek for “wound,” which reminds us that psychological trauma is an unhealed emotional wound that deserves care and healing, just as a physical wound does.
Trauma can stem from a single event, like an accident or assault, or from prolonged experiences, such as growing up in an unpredictable or unsafe environment. It affects emotions, relationships, physical health, and the nervous system. Trauma can lead to anxiety, hypervigilance, intrusive memories, dissociation, emotional numbness, difficulty trusting others, and a persistent sense of being on edge.
Why Do I Feel Triggered?
When your body senses a threat, the thinking part of your brain becomes less active so you can prioritize quick, survival-oriented reactions. Normally, after the danger passes, the brain processes the experience and the thinking mind comes back online, helping you recognize it as something that happened in the past. However, trauma can interrupt that process. Instead of being integrated into your life story, traumatic experiences can remain lodged in the brain’s emotional and survival centers, so your body doesn’t register that they’ve ended.
Even small reminders, such as certain sounds, smells, or facial expressions, can pull your nervous system back into the same state, making it feel as if the threat is happening again. You may understand intellectually that you are safe, yet still feel anxious, overwhelmed, or emotionally flooded because the thinking brain is offline and the body is responding as if it’s back in the past.
How Trauma Therapy Helps
Through trauma therapy, you’ll learn to process these experiences so the thinking part of your brain can reconnect with your emotional and survival systems. As memories are fully processed and integrated, they stop feeling like active threats. Triggers become less overwhelming, allowing you to feel more present, connected, and in control of your life.
What Is PTSD?
Many of my clients developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after traumatic experiences. PTSD can develop when the effects of traumatic experiences continue to impact your life months, years, or even decades after the event has ended.
Common symptoms of PTSD include:
Flashbacks or feeling as though the event is happening again
Nightmares
Avoiding people, places, conversations, or situations that remind you of the trauma
Feeling constantly on edge, unsafe, or easily startled
Anxiety, panic, or emotional overwhelm
Difficulty sleeping or concentrating
Feeling disconnected, numb, or detached from yourself or others
Persistent feelings of shame, guilt, fear, or helplessness
My Offerings
Through trauma therapy, I offer a holistic framework so that you can heal your mind, body, and spirit. My services target multiple parts of your brain so that the thinking, emotional, and survival parts of the brain can communicate more effectively.
My approaches include:
We will work together to process unresolved experiences, reduce the intensity of traumatic memories, build emotional regulation skills, and develop a stronger sense of safety and connection.
Healing is possible
When your nervous system has learned to stay in survival mode, it can feel exhausting to constantly manage fear, anxiety, emotional reactions, or painful memories.
You do not have to remain defined by what happened to you. Healing can help you reconnect with yourself, strengthen relationships, and move forward with confidence.
Learn more through The National Institute of Mental Health:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd
Learn more through the EMDR International Association: