Online Trauma Therapy in New Jersey
We know that trauma comes in many forms. Sometimes is a single experience and sometimes it’s years of bullying, physical abuse, or living with caretakers who weren’t able to meet your emotional needs. When traumatic moments happen, you unconsciously make meaning of those experiences.
You may have learned that you need to take care of an adult’s feelings in order to keep yourself safe. You may have learned to expect the worst because whenever good things happened, they were followed by chaos and hurt. You may have learned that connection only comes your way when you pleased others in your life and that being yourself meant you’d be all alone. Those meaning making moments are still alive and well in you when you’ve suffered from unprocessed trauma.
Our trauma work focuses on fleshing out the very meanings you made in the face of traumatic experiences so that they can be unlearned and dissolved at the root.
Therapy for adults who know their past is living in their present
Trauma-Informed Methods
IFS, Coherence Therapy, and Brainspotting are all incredibly well-suited for treating trauma. Each of these approaches doesn’t require you to relive your trauma. Brainspotting is uniquely suited for folks that struggle to verbalize in therapy or intellectualize their experience of trauma. All of these approaches target the deeper areas of the brain involved in survival responses and impacted by trauma.
These approaches can all facilitate long-lasting change that doesn’t need to be maintained by traditional coping skills. They allow clients to give their brains what they never had- a sense of safety to be able to process what happened in a way that doesn’t leave parts of their system frozen at that moment in time, still using the same defense mechanisms.
Take a look at the forms of therapy below:
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IFS believes that within each of us is a complex internal “family” containing different parts.
There is the part of you that chose to seek therapy and there may be another part of you that’s scared to start. In the IFS world, this complexity is all welcome. Every part of you is fleshed out slowly, with compassion and curiosity because IFS believes every part has intentions of protecting or helping you…even the parts you don’t like.
IFS also believes we all have a core Self beneath the defense mechanisms we adopted in response to pain, trauma, and adversity. Our core Self is compassionate, curious, clear-minded, calm, creative, courageous, confident, and compassionate.
Through IFS techniques, profound relief is possible.
Click here to learn more.
I am IFS-trained and utilize this approach to treat individuals in New Jersey.
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Brainspotting is an evidence-based somatic-therapy that supports the achievement of relief from traumatic experiences. It’s tagline is, “Where you look affects how you feel”.
The approach hones in on eye position as a mechanism for memory reconsolidation, the brain’s process for unlearning core beliefs about yourself and the world.
Brainspotting was born out of EMDR and offers comparable results without a strict protocol. When individuals are guided to find an eye position connected to pain, trauma, or adversity, Brainspotting enables the brain to engage in its natural healing and consolidation process by activating brain regions tied to survival responses, emotion, and memory.
This approach can be beneficial for folks who: intellectualize and/or want a different experience than standard talk therapy.
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I am Phase I trained in Brainspotting and utilize this approach to treat individuals in New Jersey.
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Coherence Therapy is an evidence-based approach that facilitated unlearning and resolution of deep emotional wounds. The approach works via the memory reconsolidation process.
Coherence therapy is nonjudgemental, holding the philosophy that our symptoms actually make total sense based on the (often unconscious) emotional lessons we learned when we experienced pain, suffering, and trauma.
Coherence therapy works to uncover the unconscious emotional lessons themselves so that they can be transformed and long-term relief can be experienced.
I am trained in Coherence Therapy and utilize the approach to treat individuals in New Jersey.
Who is Online Trauma Therapy in New Jersey For?
Adults in New Jersey can benefit from this work to address the following challenges:
Experiences from your past are dictating your present
You notice yourself avoiding anything that you associate with the traumatic experience(s)
You notice you fight, flight, freeze, or fawn in response to certain people, places, circumstances, sounds, smells, etc.
You’ve tried to reflect on your past but you become either too overwhelmed or you shut down
You hold onto feelings that you are shameful, unworthy of love, or that you’re never enough
You’re holding onto anger and rage that you’re afraid to feel
What Trauma Therapy with me Looks Like
Typically, all of my clients begin by scheduling a free 15-minute consultation. I don’t require that folks tell me what happened because that can be too much too soon. But we’ll talk about how the trauma is manifesting in the present and whether the approaches that I’m trained in feel like a good fit. From there, we decide on frequency of sessions. My intention is to have a consistent and reliable day and time for each of my clients to meet with me.
My priority is to offer a calm and attuned presence for all my clients from the very first meeting. As we come to understand what meaning you made of yourself and the world in response to trauma, we then begin the process of fundamentally unlearning those meanings and bringing your brain and body into the present. As with all my clients, trauma work demands that we don’t push past feelings of fear or hesitation. It’s all met with patience and compassion. Some sessions may include a mixture of techniques for all of the approaches I’m trained in while other clients may feel comfortable with one specifically.
As the trauma work progresses, clients notice that they feel less alone. They can meet the part(s) of themselves that survived the trauma with warmth, curiosity, and compassion. They are able to offer parts of themselves what they never got but really needed and ultimately look back on the painful past with a sense of neutrality. New meaning gets made and the suffering is resolved.