Is Trauma From Your Past
Still Dictating How You Feel Today?

When Surviving Doesn't Feel Like Enough

• Do flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive memories disrupt your days and nights without warning?
• Are you constantly hypervigilant — scanning for danger, startled easily, never fully relaxed?
• Have you gone emotionally numb — disconnected from feelings and from the people you love?
• Do you avoid anything that might trigger those memories — places, people, sounds, conversations?
• Do you blame yourself for what happened, or feel permanently changed by it?

PTSD is what happens when the brain's trauma processing gets interrupted. Instead of filing a difficult event as a past memory, the nervous system keeps it active — as if the threat is still present. The result is a life lived partly in the past: triggered by reminders, braced for danger, cut off from ease and connection.

PTSD is not a sign of weakness. It is a physiological response to overwhelming experience. Combat veterans, survivors of abuse, accident victims, first responders, and people who experienced childhood adversity can all develop PTSD — and all of them deserve treatment that actually works at the level where trauma lives.

PTSD Treatment That Works Where Trauma Actually Lives

I use EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as my primary modality for PTSD treatment — and it is widely considered one of the most effective trauma treatments available. EMDR is endorsed by the American Psychological Association, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which specifically recommends it as a first-line treatment for combat-related PTSD.

EMDR works by activating the brain's own trauma processing system. Using bilateral stimulation — guided eye movements, taps, or tones — EMDR allows stuck traumatic memories to be processed and integrated. The memories don't disappear, but they lose their emotional charge. Triggers that once sent you into a spiral become manageable. The nervous system learns — at a deep, felt level — that the past is over.

I also weave in Emotionally Focused approaches to address the relational impacts of PTSD — the ways trauma affects your connection to others, your sense of self, and your capacity for trust and intimacy. Trauma doesn't just affect the individual; it affects everyone around them, and healing benefits from addressing those dimensions too.

With over 20 years of clinical experience working with trauma — including combat PTSD, childhood abuse, sexual trauma, medical trauma, and complex PTSD — I bring deep skill and genuine compassion to this work. Sessions are available in-person in Phoenix or via telehealth throughout Arizona.