Trauma Therapy in Charlotte

A Path from Past Challenges to Present Healing

Children and Teens

Your child may go from 0-60, has withdrawn from friends, or refuses to sleep in their own bed. Ever since the trauma happened, something is different at home and school. You just want your child to be able to live a ‘normal’ childhood.

Young Adults

Navigating adult life is challenging enough without the added weight of trauma. You might experience flashbacks, worry about never being enough, or struggle to maintain healthy relationships. You may feel jealous of friends that aren’t having to juggle their past on top of everything else.

What counts as trauma?

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, ‘Was that really trauma?’ the answer is, if it affected you, it matters. Trauma is any experience that feels overwhelming and leaves a lasting emotional impact. It’s not just about what happened, it’s about how you or your child experienced it. Trauma can bring feelings of fear, shame, powerlessness, or deep hurt, and it can shape how we see ourselves and the world around us (EMDRIA).

While trauma is often associated with major events like abuse, accidents, or assaults, it can also stem from experiences such as medical procedures, early neglect, foster care, adoption, the loss of a loved one, witnessing harm to others, bullying, betrayal, racism, or other life challenges. There is no definitive list, what matters most is that if something has affected you deeply, you deserve space to process and heal.

When is the right time to heal?

There’s no perfect moment or checklist that tells you when to reach out for support. But if an experience is making life more difficult, trauma therapy can help.

For children, trauma can show up in ways that might not seem obvious at first. You might notice more meltdowns, trouble sleeping, fearfulness, difficulty concentrating, big reactions to small things, or a change in how they get along with friends and teachers. Some children become more withdrawn, while others seem to be on high alert all the time. If their world feels unpredictable or unsafe, even if they can’t put it into words, therapy can provide a safe space to process those feelings through play, connection, and understanding.

For teens and young adults, trauma can look like anxiety, numbness, overreacting or shutting down, self-doubt, relationship struggles, or feeling stuck in patterns that don’t make sense. Maybe you can’t shake a sense of guilt or shame, or you find yourself avoiding certain places, memories, or feelings. You don’t have to “just get over it” or handle it alone. Therapy can help you make sense of what happened, find relief, and regain control over your story.

If you aren’t sure if what your experiencing is ‘big enough’ to seek help, reach out. If something is weighing on you or your child, that’s reason enough. You deserve support.

How Therapy Can Help

Connect with Safety

Before we dive into the trauma, it is important that you or your child feel safe. I will teach you grounding and mindfulness skills and support you in finding your sense of safety. We will explore ways in which the past is showing up in your present life.

Process Through the Past

Once you have done the ground work and feel ready, we will begin to work through the trauma. I primarily use EMDR for trauma work. Learn more

Create Your Path

Now that old patterns have been explored and worked through, you are back in the driver’s seat of your life. We will work together to explore new patterns and paths.

Questions

  • My primary trauma treatment modality is EMDR. For children, I use play-based EMDR and Child Centered Play Therapy depending on the child. Sandtray, art, and play can be incorporated into trauma work.

  • EMDR is evidenced based for pre-verbal memories and attachment trauma such as adoption. The child does not need to remember the details of an incident in order for us to work through the issue using EMDR.

  • The more we are learning about trauma, the less we are using ‘big trauma’ vs. ‘little trauma’. If you are affected by something that happened in your past, it is worth working through in counseling. EMDR is effective for memories that feel 'stuck' and hard to move past. EMDR is also helpful for the ‘nonevent’s, the things that never happened or were missed. EMDR helps explore current patterns that are not serving you and heals the roots of these patterns, helping you to move forward.

    EMDR can be used to address a variety of issues, including trauma, depression, panic attacks, grief, nightmares, anxiety, and other life experiences.