Complex Trauma & Sexual Abuse Therapy in New York
When the past doesn’t feel fully in the past
You may function well in many areas of your life. You might have a career, relationships, and responsibilities that you manage effectively. And yet something still feels unsettled beneath the surface.
You might be dealing with:
Anxiety that doesn’t make logical sense
Emotional reactions that feel disproportionate
Difficulty trusting others - or yourself
A persistent sense of shame or disconnection that’s hard to explain
Some or all of these may resonate with you.
For some, this stems from early relational trauma or physical or sexual abuse. For others, it may come from chronic emotional neglect, unpredictability, or growing up feeling unseen or emotionally alone.
Even when these experiences happened years ago, their imprint often remains in the nervous system, shaping how safe life, relationships, and your own body feel.
Periods of grief, loss, or major life transition can also reactivate earlier trauma, bringing unresolved experiences closer to the surface.
The impact of complex trauma
Complex trauma rarely shows up as a single memory. It lives in patterns:
Feeling responsible for other people’s emotions
Struggling with intimacy or closeness
Moving through life with an underlying hypervigilance, waiting for something to go wrong
Finding it easier to manage everything alone than to let people in
Moments of shame that arrive suddenly and feel overwhelming
Difficulty feeling fully safe in your own body
If you’re a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), there may also be confusion, self-blame, or questions around identity, sexuality, or bodily autonomy. Many survivors carry these experiences alone for years.
You may feel broken. But these patterns are adaptive responses to experiences that once felt overwhelming or unsafe
My approach to trauma work
I practice trauma-informed, psychodynamic therapy that moves at a pace your nervous system can tolerate.
This work is not about forcing you to relive events or digging up memories prematurely. It’s about gradually building enough internal and relational safety to understand what happened - and how it continues to shape your present.
We work with attachment patterns that formed in response to early experiences, and with the protective parts of you that developed to keep you safe (IFS-informed work). We pay attention to how trauma lives in your body - the tension, the numbness, the hypervigilance. And we notice how familiar patterns show up in relationships, including the therapy relationship itself.
Because trauma is relational in nature, its impact often shows up in adult partnerships, influencing trust, intimacy, communication, and emotional safety. When working with couples, we move carefully, creating space to understand how traumatic experiences shape relational dynamics without overwhelming either partner.
Healing from complex trauma is not linear. It is relational, layered, and deeply personal.
Therapy as a space for integration
Over time, trauma work becomes less about what happened and more about reclaiming parts of yourself that had to go quiet in order to survive.
Rather than exclusively managing symptoms, we work toward something more fundamental: less shame, a steadier relationship with your own emotions, the ability to trust yourself and others more fully, and a more integrated sense of who you are.
This process can also support individuals navigating identity development, sexuality, and belonging, especially where trauma and self-concept intersect. My work is LGBTQ+ affirming, and I offer a space where these experiences can be explored with care, curiosity, and without judgment.
Ultimately, this work can help you feel less alone and begin to internalize something that may not yet feel fully believable: that you’re not actually broken.
I also work with men who experienced sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence. Many male survivors carry particular layers of shame, confusion about masculinity, or questions about sexuality. You can read more about that here.
Trauma therapy typically takes place individually, though I meet with couples where relevant. I also facilitate a weekly, ongoing support group for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
If you’re ready to begin trauma therapy in New York, I invite you to reach out.