Trauma Therapy in San Diego, California

Maybe you’ve already connected the dots about your past.

You know the whole story (although you wish you could just forget it). But even with all the therapy you’ve done and ways you’ve coped, you’re still getting triggered, still shutting down, and still feeling pulled back into the same old things—especially when it comes to substances, control, relationships, food, or your body. It’s like your mind keeps trying to move forward, but your body never gets the memo.

And no matter how much you logically understand your own trauma, it’s not actually changing how it feels.

1. Building real trust (at your pace)

We don’t jump straight into the deep end. Trauma work starts with building a relationship where you actually feel safe, respected, and not rushed. You’ll be in control of what we talk about and when.

I’m not here to push you somewhere you’re not ready to go, but I will gently challenge you when I notice you avoiding things or notice something important getting skipped over. We move at a pace your nervous system can actually handle, not one that overwhelms you outside your window of tolerance.

2. Understanding what’s happening in your body

Before we go digging into the past, we start with what’s happening right now. We look at your triggers, patterns, and how your nervous system responds in real time—whether that’s anxiety, shutting down, overthinking, or feeling disconnected from yourself, your life, or your relationships.

What we start to uncover is that those big reactions in the present aren’t coming out of nowhere. They’re often tied to something from the past that hasn’t been fully processed. Your nervous system is trying to protect you—it recognizes something as familiar and signals danger, even if the logical part of your brain knows you’re safe. A lot of clients tell me this is the first time their reactions actually make sense instead of feeling random or “too much.”

At the same time, we build the tools to help you stay present and supported. I use grounding skills and DBT-based distress tolerance skills to help you regulate in the moment—so you’re not getting overwhelmed or shutting down when hard things come up.

3. Learning how to stay with & listen to your emotions

This is a big one. Why? Because most people I work with are used to thinking their way through things or coping with them through unhelpful habits—not actually feeling their feelings.

We start by building your ability to notice, name, and stay with your emotions and tolerate the discomfort they may bring up without immediately avoiding or pushing them away. And while I know that might sound daunting right now, the goal is to slowly increase your capacity to handle your emotions—so they don’t always feel like something you need to escape from.

4. Processing what’s been stuck

In order to truly heal, we have to go deep. I use Brainspotting, a somatic approach, to help your brain and body process what’s still being held in your nervous system. Trauma isn’t stored in the logical part of your brain; it lives in your emotion mind and your body. That’s why even if you understand your story logically and have tried coping skills for triggers, it can still feel like your past is running the show. And don’t get me wrong, understanding your story and what happened is an important first step. But does not alone create lasting change.

So instead of just talking about what happened, we actually help your nervous system feel and move through it. Over time, the intensity starts to shift, and those triggers in the present that once felt overwhelming don’t hit the same way anymore, or you feel more empowered navigating them.

5. Creating real, lasting change

Eventually, you’ll start to notice this shifting in your real life. You start to react less intensely to triggers, maybe have fewer urges to engage in maladaptive coping skills, feel more present, and become more able to handle what comes up without spiraling. You’re not avoiding or disconnecting in the same way—and when something does get triggered, you’re able to stay with it, understand it, and move through it.

It’s not just an internal shift either—it starts to show up in how you relate to your body and food, too. Resolving trauma can soften the intensity, quiet the overthinking, and help you let go of needing to control everything or make your body look a certain way just to feel okay.

What if I don’t think my experiences were “that bad”?
You don’t need a specific type of trauma for this work to be relevant. A lot of people minimize or question their experiences—“it wasn’t that bad”—while still feeling the impact in their daily life. If your body is reacting, that’s worth paying attention to. We don’t measure trauma by how it looks from the outside, we look at how it’s affecting you now.

How does trauma relate to eating disorders or my relationship with food?
For many people, eating disorder behaviors are a way to cope with or manage what hasn’t been processed. Things like restriction, purging, bingeing, or control around food can serve as a way to avoid emotions, feel more in control, or numb out what feels overwhelming (or what’s been hurting for a long time). So even if you’ve made progress, unresolved trauma can still show up as anxiety, body image struggles, eating disorder behaviors, or feeling “stuck.” That’s why we look at both—not just the behaviors, but what’s underneath them. Learn more about my work here: Eating Disorder Therapy, Disordered Eating & Body Image Therapy, & the HAES® framework.

What is Brainspotting and how does it work?
Brainspotting is a trauma-focused therapy method that helps your brain and body process unresolved trauma at a deeper level. In talk therapy, we are using our logical brain to process things. In Brainspotting, we are accessing our emotion mind using specific eye positions called “brainspots” to access where trauma is stored in the brain. As you gently focus on that brainspot with the support of bilateral stimulation through music, your attention stays anchored while your brain and body naturally do the work of processing what’s there. You don’t have to force anything, analyze it, or retell everything in detail. My role is to help you stay regulated and supported while your system works through what it’s ready to process, at your pace.

Over time, this helps reduce the intensity of trauma memories and events and can create lasting relief—not just temporary coping.

What experience do you have working with trauma?
I’ve worked extensively with trauma across different settings, including higher levels of care, and I specialize in helping clients move beyond insight into deeper, body-based processing.

I’m trained in Level 1 Brainspotting and integrate this somatic approach into my work, which allows us to access and process trauma in ways that talk therapy alone often can’t. I’m also very familiar with how trauma shows up alongside eating disorders, substance abuse, anxiety, and depression—which is why my work isn’t just about managing symptoms, but actually getting underneath them.

What if I’m scared to go deeper into my trauma?

That’s normal and to be expected, especially after all that you’ve experienced. We don’t rush into anything, and a core pillar of Brainspotting is that the client is the one leading it, not the therapist. We prioritize building safety, grounding, and support first so your system can handle the work without becoming overwhelmed. You’re always in control of the pace when we do a Brainspotting session. This work can help your body process things in a way that feels both safe and manageable, and I have witnessed the impact of lasting change as a result of using this method in therapy with my clients.