Our Approach

We utilize a reflective, relational approach meaning that rather than doing therapy “to” or “at” our clients, we are engaging in relationship with them in a way that allows patterns and themes interjecting from the past to enact themselves in the room with us in the present.

Rather than only utilizing a “top down” approach where we analyze and engage cognitively, or only utilizing a “bottom up” approach where we would only pay attention to the somatic and emotional experience, we combine these in order to engage all parts of the person in front of us. We believe that this “wholeness” is the natural human state, and this is what trauma often takes from us by fragmenting and dissociating parts of our humanity from us.

Complex trauma survivors often do not have complete memories or verbal narratives to call from, but their traumatic experiences are still stored in their bodies and find ways to speak to them. But engaging fully in the somatic and experiential is not healing without being in connection with other parts of the self, the present moment, and in relationship with a trusted other. The people who we work with have often been harmed in relationship, so it is through relationship that we work towards healing.

There is not a single step-by-step process to this type of work, because every individual has different wounds and has different needs to be met in order to heal those wounds. We firmly believe that while we may be experts in how to hold space for our clients and track the process of their healing, our clients are the experts on themselves and their experience, and it’s crucial to reinforce their agency in the process of their healing.

Our approach is one of reflection, curiosity, engagement, patience, and pacing. We work to build a safe, secure, and consistent relationship to process things within and through, and this is something that takes time in order to do well. We value inquiry for the sake of inquiry, and hold self-reflection and narrative building as inherently healing.

We believe that human wellness is linked to human connection, not just environmental stress or biology.

Bringing yourself into the room

What sets trauma informed care and the way we do it apart from other forms of therapy is that the way that we conceptualize trauma and the method to heal it necessitates bringing ourselves into the room with the client. We would argue that this is inevitable and unavoidable in any therapy and that not acknowledging this can cause problems, but in trauma therapy specifically it is what really creates change for the client.

Learning how to do this in a way that is in service of the client and therapeutic is a skill that takes time to feel comfortable with. In our workshops we help therapists learn to listen to their own bodies and tune into their emotional responses to their clients in order to differentiate what is theirs and what is not; and this can provide such rich and useful information about what a client has experienced in the past as well as how they might be interacting with others in the present.

Because this is a relational and human process, there isn’t a step-by-step scientific approach that can explain how to employ it, which is why our workshops are experientially oriented and create room for nuance, intuition, and acceptance of a “not knowing” attitude.