Therapy for Trauma Recovery and PTSD
I provide evidence-based therapy for adults recovering from trauma, including medical trauma, sexual trauma, birth trauma, and traumatic experiences at any stage of life. Trauma is not defined by the event alone; it is defined by how the person experiences the traumatic event and how it continues to impact them.
Trauma treatment is where my clinical and research careers meet. During my doctoral training at Duke University, my research focused on the intersection of trauma and healthcare, including developing a program to reduce distress during pelvic exams for gynecologic cancer survivors and studying the experiences of survivors of violence navigating medical care. I completed several years of training in Prolonged Exposure (PE) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) during my doctoral program, residency and postdoctoral fellowship.
I also provide dedicated treatment for reproductive and perinatal mental health, and OCD and anxiety disorders. You can learn more on my Reproductive and Perinatal Mental Health and OCD & Anxiety Treatment pages.
✺ What encompasses PTSD and trauma recovery? ✺
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Trauma during birth, pregnancy loss, fertility treatment, and reproductive medical care sits at the intersection of my trauma and reproductive specialties — and it is the heart of my practice. You can read more about this work on my Reproductive & Perinatal Mental Health page.
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Medical experiences can be traumatic: emergency procedures, time in the ICU or NICU, a frightening diagnosis, invasive treatment, or feeling dismissed, unheard, or powerless in a healthcare setting. Medical trauma is real trauma and it carries a distinctive challenge, because recovery often requires returning to the very settings where the trauma occurred for ongoing care.
I work with clients to process traumatic medical experiences, and to prepare for upcoming procedures with concrete coping plans so they can communicate their needs, preferences, and boundaries with their healthcare providers and stay engaged in their own care rather than avoiding it. This work is informed by my research developing interventions for exactly this problem: helping people who have been through frightening medical experiences feel a sense of safety and agency in healthcare again.
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I provide trauma-focused therapy to survivors of sexual violence, at any point in their recovery — whether the experience was recent or decades ago. Survivors often carry their trauma into places no one warns them about: sexual intimacy, gynecologic exams, fertility treatment, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, cancer screening, and other healthcare experiences that involve their bodies. Feeling panic, dissociation, dread, or shame in these settings is a common and understandable trauma response — and it is treatable.
My doctoral research focused on the experiences of survivors of violence during gynecologic care, and this remains a central focus of my clinical work. In therapy, we move at your pace. Treatment may include processing the trauma itself with PE or CPT, rebuilding a sense of safety and ownership in your body, and preparing for specific healthcare experiences with a plan that keeps you in control.
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Many medical providers face moments in their careers when they feel burned out, exhausted, or that a medical case is weighing on them. Therapy is an avenue to process those stressors and find a path forward. Often this looks like building coping strategies to use in and out of work, building in restorative activities in one’s personal life, and re-evaluating bandwidth.
I often provide therapy for PTSD to medical professionals who are recovering from witnessing a traumatic medical experience with a patient at work, or a series of severely stressful workplace events. Often people come to therapy noticing constant thoughts of “could I have done more?”, experiencing cases are haunting them and replaying in their minds, and feelings of guilt, shame, or anger. These medical cases may also bring up painful reminders of previous traumatic medical experiences or losses that the provider has experienced in their own life.
Some providers are carrying grief or anticipatory grief related to losing patients in their care. It is an honor to hold space for providers who are struggling to hold the weight of trying to care for others in a moment of crisis or complications, or long term chronic illness and uncertainty about a patient’s recovery.
I enjoy working with birth workers and medical professionals who provide OB/GYN care, inpatient care, PICU and NICU care, pediatrics, oncology, anesthesiology, ICU, emergency medicine, and surgery contexts. All types of medical professionals are welcome.
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After trauma, many people experience understandable changes in how they feel, think, and move through the world. For some these responses fade with time; for others they persist and begin to narrow life — and that is when treatment helps.
Posttraumatic stress can include:
- Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares about the trauma
- Avoiding reminders — places, people, memories, conversations, appointments
- Feeling constantly on guard, startling easily, trouble sleeping
- Difficulty trusting yourself or others, or making decisions
- Guilt, shame, or self-blame about what happened
- Painful shifts in how you see yourself, others, and the world
Trauma responses are understandable human reactions, and they are treatable, whether the trauma happened a few months ago or many years ago.
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Prolonged Exposure (PE) helps clients safely approach trauma memories and the situations they have been avoiding, so that the memories lose their power and life opens back up. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) focuses on identifying and shifting the beliefs that trauma changed about safety, trust, power and control, intimacy, and self-esteem. Both are structured, time-limited, and among the most rigorously studied treatments in all of mental health care. We will decide together which approach fits your goals.
Trauma therapy works well through telehealth — many clients find that doing this work from their own home makes it feel safer to begin. And it can be effective whether the trauma happened a few months ago or many years ago; many of my clients begin treatment long after the event, often when a life experience — a medical procedure, a pregnancy, becoming a parent — brings the trauma back to the surface.
If trauma is shaping your life, your relationships, or your ability to care for your health, I may be a good fit. Effective treatment exists, and it is never too late to begin. I offer telehealth therapy to adults in North Carolina, California, and 40+ PSYPACT states. You can contact me here.
Specialized therapy for reproductive mental health, OCD and anxiety, and PTSD — serving adults in North Carolina, California, and PSYPACT states