Stop Living From Childhood Pain. Start Relating to Yourself Differently
I’m a childhood trauma therapist in Arlington, and I work with adults who are still carrying what happened to them as children. Maybe it was a toxic family, emotional neglect, or years of feeling like you weren’t safe being yourself. I offer online trauma therapy across Virginia to help you work through what’s still affecting you and build a relationship with yourself that isn’t shaped by old pain.
Most people who come to me for childhood trauma therapy have been getting by for years. They’ve built careers, relationships, and lives that look functional from the outside. But something underneath still doesn’t feel right. The anxiety that never fully goes away. The sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. The way certain relationships bring out reactions you don’t understand and can’t seem to stop.
What happened in childhood gets organized into how your nervous system reads safety, connection, and your own worth. That organization doesn’t dissolve just because you understand it. Insight helps, but the patterns keep running until the underlying material gets direct attention. That’s where childhood trauma therapy comes in.
People come here when they notice that managing it isn’t the same as healing it. They want something that goes deeper than coping.
Childhood trauma doesn’t always look dramatic. It often shows up as patterns you can’t quite explain:
Going beneath the patterns to what created them
I integrate several trauma-focused approaches to meet your nervous system where it is. EMDR helps reprocess memories that are still activating your stress response. IFS helps you build a compassionate relationship with the protective parts that developed in childhood. Somatic therapy addresses what your body is still holding. And trauma-focused CBT helps shift the beliefs about yourself that formed before you could question them.
We move at a pace your system can tolerate. Early sessions focus on building safety and understanding what’s actually driving the patterns before we approach the more difficult material. The goal isn’t to relive your childhood. It’s to help your nervous system recognize that the danger is over.
What I Offer
The patterns you’ve been managing can actually start to shift
I’m a licensed professional counselor specializing in childhood trauma therapy, with advanced training in complex trauma and dissociation through the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. I hold a Master’s in Counseling from William and Mary and have worked with trauma across multiple levels of mental health care, from crisis response to outpatient therapy.
I’ve been in therapy myself. For years, I was driven by fears of inadequacy and rejection, and I didn’t know how to let people care for me. That experience shapes how I work now, with honesty, patience, and genuine investment in helping you find what feels true. I believe healing from childhood trauma is possible, and I’ve seen it happen.
Childhood trauma includes a wide range of experiences that overwhelmed your capacity to cope when you were young. It’s not limited to dramatic events. Emotional neglect, toxic family dynamics, and chronic stress during childhood can shape your nervous system just as profoundly as acute incidents. Understanding how these early experiences still affect you is part of how healing becomes possible.
Childhood trauma refers to overwhelming experiences that happened before you had the resources to process them:
Many people seeking childhood trauma therapy grew up in what’s often called a toxic family:
Childhood trauma often organizes into specific roles within the family system:
Not all childhood trauma happens at home:
Childhood trauma often shows up in adulthood as patterns rather than memories:
Childhood trauma changes the brain and nervous system during the periods when they’re most formative:
I integrate several modalities to address childhood trauma at different levels, from the beliefs it created to what your body is still holding. We tailor the approach to what you need rather than following a fixed protocol.
EMDR helps reprocess memories from childhood that are still activating your nervous system. By using bilateral stimulation, we help your brain complete the processing that couldn’t happen when the events first occurred. You don’t have to narrate every detail. EMDR reaches what talk alone often can’t.
How EMDR supports healing from childhood trauma:
Internal Family Systems therapy helps you build a relationship with the protective parts that developed during childhood. These parts, whether they show up as the inner critic, the people-pleaser, or the part that shuts down, are trying to help. IFS creates the conditions for them to release what they’ve been carrying.
How IFS supports healing from childhood trauma:
Somatic therapy addresses what your body is still holding from childhood. Chronic tension, shutdown, and difficulty feeling safe in your own skin are common when trauma happened early. We work with body awareness, breath, and nervous system regulation to help your body learn that safety is possible now.
How somatic therapy supports healing from childhood trauma:
Trauma-focused CBT addresses the beliefs about yourself that childhood created. “I’m not enough.” “I have to earn love.” “My needs don’t matter.” These beliefs formed early and became automatic. CBT helps identify and shift them, not through forced positive thinking, but through examining what’s actually true now.
How trauma-focused CBT supports healing from childhood trauma:
When researching childhood trauma therapy, you may come across approaches I don’t currently offer. Understanding what draws people to these methods can help clarify what you’re looking for and how what I offer addresses similar needs.
Play therapy is primarily used with children, allowing them to process experiences through play rather than language. Adults searching for play therapy often want an approach that doesn’t require extensive verbal processing. While I don’t offer play therapy, the modalities I use, including EMDR and somatic therapy, work with the brain and body in ways that don’t require reliving trauma through detailed storytelling.
Art therapy uses creative expression to access and process traumatic material. People drawn to art therapy often want an approach that bypasses the limitations of language. While I don’t offer art therapy specifically, IFS works with imagery and internal experience in ways that access what words alone can’t reach. EMDR similarly works below the level of narrative.
The first session is about understanding what’s been happening and building enough safety to do real work. We move at a pace your nervous system can handle. You’re in control of what you share and when.
Childhood trauma refers to experiences during childhood that overwhelmed your capacity to cope. This includes events commonly recognized as traumatic, and also chronic conditions that shaped your development.
Examples of Childhood Trauma
Why Early Experiences Matter
What makes childhood trauma different from adult trauma is that it happens during the periods when your brain and nervous system are still forming. The experiences get organized into how you understand yourself, relationships, and safety. That organization persists into adulthood, even when the circumstances have completely changed.
Signs of childhood trauma in adults often appear as patterns rather than explicit memories. You may not connect current struggles to childhood, but the connection becomes clearer in therapy.
How Childhood Trauma Shows Up Later in Life
Childhood trauma affects adulthood because it shapes the brain and nervous system during its most formative periods. The patterns that developed to survive childhood become automatic and continue running long after childhood ends.
How Early Experiences Organize Present Behavior
Childhood trauma is connected to a range of mental health conditions, though not everyone who experiences childhood trauma develops a diagnosable disorder.
Conditions Linked to Childhood Trauma
Childhood trauma often involves experiences of grief and loss that were never fully processed. Having a diagnosis isn’t required to benefit from childhood trauma therapy.
Childhood trauma affects brain development and nervous system regulation. The changes are real, and they’re also not permanent.
How the Brain Responds to Early Trauma
Neuroplasticity and Healing
The brain remains capable of change throughout life. Trauma therapy works because the nervous system can reorganize around new experiences of safety and connection. This is why healing childhood trauma is possible at any age.
Memory works differently when trauma is involved. Some people have always remembered what happened. Others recover memories later. Both experiences are valid.
How Memory Works With Trauma
Effective childhood trauma treatment addresses both what you think and what your nervous system is holding.
Therapeutic Approaches for Childhood Trauma
You may have unresolved childhood trauma if you notice patterns in your present life that don’t seem to match your current circumstances.
Signs That Trauma May Be Unresolved
The duration of childhood trauma therapy varies based on what you’re carrying and how your nervous system responds.
Factors That Affect Treatment Length
You don’t need a crisis or a diagnosis to benefit from childhood trauma therapy.
Good Candidates for Childhood Trauma Therapy
Childhood trauma can affect anyone, but some factors increase vulnerability.
Factors That Influence Impact
There’s no wrong time to address childhood trauma if it’s affecting your life now.
Signs It Might Be Time
Yes. Healing from childhood trauma is possible. I’ve seen it happen.
What Healing Looks Like
Therapy is effective for childhood trauma in adults. Research supports this, and so does my clinical experience.
Why Therapy Works for Adults With Childhood Trauma
Many people question whether their experiences were “bad enough” to justify treatment. That questioning itself is often part of what childhood taught you.
How to Think About What Counts
A skilled trauma therapist doesn’t push you into material before you’re ready.
How We Approach Difficult Material
Some increased awareness of difficult feelings is normal as you turn toward what’s been avoided.
What to Expect During the Process
Childhood trauma, especially relational trauma, shapes how you approach closeness and trust.
Common Relationship Patterns Connected to Childhood Trauma
Childhood trauma therapy uses specialized approaches that address how trauma is stored in the brain and body.
What Makes Trauma Therapy Different
Session Rates
Insurance and Out-of-Network Benefits
Submitting Insurance Claims
Office Location
Yes. All of my sessions are conducted online through secure video. I provide childhood trauma therapy to adults across Virginia, including Alexandria, Arlington, Chesapeake, Hampton, Harrisonburg, Leesburg, Lynchburg, Manassas, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Reston, Richmond, Roanoke, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach.
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