Many of my clients have experienced complex trauma, attachment trauma, or complex post traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).

Rather than one big trauma such as a car accident, these terms describe an accumulation of experiences of repeated traumas or relationship fractures over time. This could be from growing up with a parent who was mentally, emotionally, sexually or physically abusive or neglectful and a child lived with that parent throughout childhood, for a stretch of their childhood, or with the parent during recurring visits. This also describes family systems in which the parent’s own psychological and emotional needs were put before the child’s for example in the case of narcissism or parents who struggle with substance use.

Complex trauma can also result from an accumulation of harmful experiences in adult relationships, or from systemic issues such as racism, classism, ableism, sexism, or many other ways in which who you are has been repeatedly minimized, devalued or denigrated.

Complexity in our psyche is fertile ground for growth, understanding and healing. Psychotherapy with me is an opportunity to be in a closer relationship with yourself, and as a result, closer relationship with others.