Trauma therapy in Denver
Emotional wounds tend to make sense once you understand where they came from
The pain you’ve been living with isn’t a character flaw
Trauma that comes from childhood family dysfunction, relational harm, or years of not being safe enough to fully be yourself is complex, and it can look a lot like personality. The survivor parts of you want to protect who you really are deep down, and they work hard to do it. They may be slow to trust, but with time and compassion, they can change.
You may have already tried to get to the bottom of this
Maybe you've done some therapy before. You understand that there are patterns, and you can name what happened. And yet something still feels stuck: the same reactions, the same pull toward the same things, the same quiet sense that you can't quite trust yourself or the people around you.
There's a known reason for that, and it isn't a failure on your part. Complex trauma is held in the body and nervous system as much as in the mind, and understanding why something happens doesn't always release you from it. The approaches I use were developed for exactly this situation: when the insight is there and the change hasn't followed yet.
It’s different from how most people picture PTSD. The symptoms are emotional and relational, so the treatment is a bit different, too.
Relationships that feel intense, confusing, or impossible to sustain
A persistent sense of not being enough, or not being safe
People-pleasing, over-functioning, or shrinking yourself to keep the peace
A critical inner voice that sounds a lot like someone from your past
Difficulty trusting your own perceptions and needs
Anxiety, depression, and exhaustion that don't fully respond to the usual approaches
Numbing, disconnection, or going through the motions of a life you can't quite feel
If any of that sounds familiar, you're someone who adapted. This work is about respecting your emotional survival skills as well as learning something different.
What complex trauma actually looks like
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS, commonly called parts work or inner child work, is a way of understanding yourself that starts with a simple premise: we're all made of parts. Some like to be very busy so that everything looks fine, others carry the heavy burden of old pain. Some have been working so hard for so long to keep you safe that they've forgotten they don't have to do it alone anymore.
In IFS there are no bad parts, including the ones you're most at war with. The inner critic, the part that numbs out, the one that picks the same fight; these are almost always protectors that took on a job a long time ago, usually in childhood and for good reason at the time. The work is to recognize this. When parts feel understood, they can soften their tactics. They allow change because of compassion and respect, nothing is forced.
This is a gentle and creative way to work. It's particularly powerful for trauma that formed in the context of relationships, because it honors the complexity of those relationships without requiring simple answers.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is one of the most thoroughly researched trauma treatments available. It's recommended as a first-line treatment for PTSD by the World Health Organization and US Department of Veterans Affairs. The mechanism that matters, the one behind eye movements and the other tools used in EMDR: traumatic memories sometimes get stored differently than usual, without being fully processed, which is why an old memory can still set off a present-day alarm. EMDR helps to finish processing those memories so they become things that happened, rather than things that keep happening.
You don't have to narrate everything that happened in detail for this to work, which surprises people. EMDR works at the level of the stored memory and the body's response to it, not the retelling.
For complex and relational trauma, built up over years rather than a single event, I pace EMDR carefully and combine it with IFS, which gives the protective parts of you a real say in what gets worked on and when. That consent matters clinically, not just ethically: processing goes better when all the parts of you are heard.
When trauma and identity are the same wound
For many queer and trans people, the relational and developmental trauma they carry is tied directly to their identity. Family rejection, the chronic stress of hiding and masking, religious trauma, the long-term effects of never feeling safe enough to be fully yourself. These wounds arrive together, and they deserve respectful, compassionate support that understands that.
This is work I'm particularly equipped to offer as a clinician, and because it's personal to me. If your experience sits at this intersection, you're in the right place.
You can also find warmlines and peer support on the community resources page. These are available right now, outside of a therapy room.
You don’t have to keep carrying this alone
A free consultation is the first step. There are no forms or commitments, just a conversation to see if we’re a good fit.