What I help with
Trauma therapy for what the body still carries.
Trauma is not the event. It is what your nervous system did to survive it, and then kept doing afterwards.
What this is
Trauma is not the event. It is what the nervous system did to survive the event, and then kept doing afterwards. That is why two people can go through the same thing and be affected completely differently, and why asking whether it was bad enough is such an unreliable measure.
It can come from one clear incident, or from years of something ordinary and repeated: a home that was never quite safe, a caregiver whose warmth depended on your behavior, a relationship where you learned to read a room before you walked into it. The second kind is often called complex trauma, and people carrying it frequently do not think of themselves as traumatized at all.
What it leaves behind tends to be physical before it is verbal. Startling easily. Sleep that never goes fully deep. Going numb when things get close. Reacting to a tone of voice with an intensity that surprises you afterwards. These are not character flaws. They are a protective system that never received the signal that the danger had passed.
What the work looks like
A quiet, honest shape to the hour.
Stability before excavation
We do not begin by going back into what happened. We begin by making sure you have enough footing to do that safely. For some people that stage is short. For others it is most of the first year, and that is not a delay. It is the work.
Internal Family Systems, at Level 2 depth
I am trained through IFS Level 2, which focuses specifically on trauma and neuroscience. IFS lets us approach the parts of you that carry the worst of it without flooding you, because we ask the protective parts first rather than going around them.
Structured trauma work where it fits
For children and teenagers, and for some adults, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy offers a clear evidence-based structure with the caregiver involved. It is not right for everyone. We decide together rather than by default.
Who this is for
Children, teenagers, adults, couples, and families in Greenville and across South Carolina. Trauma and PTSD are my primary focus and I have been doing this work for more than twenty five years. That includes single-incident trauma such as an accident, an assault, or a medical event; complex and childhood trauma; attachment wounds; and the trauma that sits underneath anxiety, depression, or a relationship that keeps breaking in the same place. I also work with parents who are trying not to hand on what they were handed, often through Circle of Security Parenting.
Questions