L.A.-based Trauma Therapy for California Residents
somatic Therapy for healing Trauma in Northeast Los Angeles & online
Trauma actually changes your brain. That is true, validated, evidentiary science. So, what is trauma? For many years, trauma was thought of as the negative consequence of experiencing severely distressing events like domestic violence, sexual assault, or witnessing violence or death, often called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.) Then, we started to understand that our bodies and minds stored and processed a number of experiences, ongoing conditions, and even systemic oppression, the same way they dealt with events like surviving war or other acts of extreme, traumatic violence. By recognizing and validating the experience of all forms of trauma, the Kindman & Co. team helps individuals through healing trauma therapy that supports you to lead a more fulfilled and satisfying life.
complex & relational trauma
In many therapy practices, trauma is considered exclusively in relation to experiencing or witnessing one or more life-threatening, traumatic events. While this is a very real and serious concern for some people, many of us experience traumatic responses to situations that may appear to have been smaller scale, were more personal, often hidden, and may have occurred on an ongoing, long-term basis. We sometimes refer to the acute, life-threatening traumatic incidents as “Big T Trauma,” which often leads to a PTSD diagnosis, whereas “Little T Trauma,” describes the effect of these cumulative moments of ongoing, personal distress that can equally create a lasting trauma response. Many people don’t even see or validate these forms of complex and relational trauma, but for those experiencing it, the trauma is all too real.
Some examples of complex trauma include:
There’s no traumatic moment to point to, but you find yourself experiencing the physical and emotional symptoms of trauma response (racing thoughts, headache, accelerated heart rate, sense of feeling highly stressed or overwhelmed, hypervigilance, re-experiencing upsetting events, anxiety, depression.) If you think about the moments when this happens, you may be able to uncover what triggered it, but you still don’t understand why.
You have difficulty developing and maintaining healthy relationships. You may avoid close friendships and romantic partnerships completely, or you may find yourself partnering with people who do not respect or validate your boundaries or needs. You truly want to find healthy and supportive relationships, but it feels impossible.
Your childhood was happy enough, your parents didn’t do anything wrong, but you still feel like something was missing. You love your parents, but part of you is holding on to resentment that you can’t even explain to yourself. You may find yourself overcompensating with your own children or distancing yourself from close relationships with them.
You’re not like everyone else. Your whole life, even the most well-meaning people, have said this to you. At first, it felt good to be different, but after a lifetime, hearing how different you are because you’re creative, think outside the box, or don’t conform to their normal…well, it doesn’t feel good anymore.
You’re a thriving member of the LGBTQIA+ community. You have found love and friendship and joy in your community, but the world does not always recognize or accept you. Ongoing, covert discrimination may be invisible to your friends or loved ones who have never had to deal with it, but as much as you try, it impacts your life. You find yourself with higher levels of stress, you’re struggling with depression, your anxiety is out of control.
You are a BIPOC individual living in a world and society that is frequently oppressive and unsafe towards you—having had to navigate encounters of racial bias, systemic racism, and/or individual racism and discrimination. Racial trauma or race based traumatic stress injuries can also occur through vicarious trauma, like in media exposure to police killings, or inherited intergenerational trauma that has been passed down in families from historical experiences of racism, like chattel slavery.
The person in the mirror doesn’t seem to match how you feel and who you believe you are. Even worse, the person other people see doesn’t seem to match either of these self-perceived images. Who does that mean you are?
trauma therapy
You may not identify any of these examples as trauma, but we do. Like any other profession, our field is always growing and changing. Even if you don’t recognize your specific complex trauma experience above, therapy can help you understand how feelings of isolation, loneliness, shame, anxiety, or depression are often a result of the self-defensive, neurobiological response to unrecognized and unprocessed trauma. During therapy for trauma, we are here to honor and validate the emotions and experiences of complex and relational trauma. We don’t look at a trauma response and other big emotions as something that’s broken and needs to be fixed. Instead, we interpret your distress as a message that your mind and body are sending you and help you build tools to help you better tolerate distress. We work together to understand what they’re trying to teach you about your experience, needs, values, and identity, and create opportunities for healing. You are a resilient and remarkable person, and the more you understand and accept your own value, the more you can advocate for and protect your needs.
therapy sessions for trauma
During therapy for trauma, we will be learning together what the impact of trauma is on your life and how you can regain a greater sense of control. Over the course of your therapy sessions, we will help you:
Observe moment-to-moment experiences to gain awareness of how trauma is stored in your body and understand your unique threat response
Track your triggers and thought and behavior patterns, so you can identify these situations as they arise and start to regain control over the experiences
Begin to release fears from previous traumatic experiences in a supportive therapeutic relationship and safe physical space
Develop skills to manage physical and emotional symptoms of trauma (and start to rewire the neurons in your brain!) to build more trust in your nervous system response and your ability to tolerate moments of distress or big feelings
Practice boundary setting to create a more secure emotional environment where you can feel safer and more at ease
Cultivate intimacy in your relationships, so you can build a support system and community where you feel confident to explore and grow as an individual
religious trauma healing
We also understand and work with the unique complexities of religious trauma. Read our blog to learn more about what is religious trauma and signs that you may have religious trauma. If this sounds like you, please contact us to get paired with a therapist to help you process and heal from religious trauma now.
let's begin.
You are not in this alone. You were never meant to be. Each and every one of us innately possesses strengths to live more enriching, joyful lives; let us help you to (re) connect to your strengths to find well-being.
