C-PTSD and Trauma Therapy NYC & Nearby Areas

Complex trauma isn’t usually one overwhelming event. It’s more like a series of paper cuts, small, repeated moments of not feeling seen, supported, or safe that accumulate over time. These experiences often happen in close relationships or early environments where attunement was inconsistent. Attunement refers to being emotionally met, having someone notice what you’re feeling, respond with care, and help you regulate when things feel too much. When that kind of attunement is missing or unpredictable, the nervous system learns to stay alert, guarded, or braced for what might come next.

Over time, this can show up in the body as chronic tension, emotional reactivity, shutdown, or a constant low-level sense of being on edge. If you’ve been trying to move forward but keep finding yourself pulled back into familiar patterns, it isn’t a failure, it's protection shaped by what your system learned it had to do to survive.

Through my Somatic and Movement Psychotherapy and EMDR I help women gently unwind the imprint of long-term trauma. Together, we work to rebuild internal safety, restore the experience of attunement in the present, soften survival strategies that are no longer needed, and reconnect with parts of you that learned to stay hidden in order to get through.

C-PTSD therapy focuses on healing trauma that developed over time often within relationships or environments where safety, consistency, and emotional attunement were limited or unpredictable. This can include emotional neglect, unstable caregiving, chronic relational stress, or long-term exposure to situations that require you to stay alert, adapt quickly, or suppress parts of yourself in order to cope. Rather than being rooted in a single traumatic event, complex trauma shapes how the nervous system, sense of self, and attachment patterns develop.

For some women, complex trauma also includes experiences of sexual assault, sexual coercion, domestic violence, or other forms of relational abuse where safety, consent, or power were compromised. This may involve emotional abuse, controlling dynamics, chronic intimidation, or violations of boundaries within intimate or family relationships, social and religious communities, school or workplace environments whether in childhood or adulthood. Even when these experiences were minimized, normalized, or difficult to name at the time, the body often continues to hold their impact, shaping how safety, trust, touch, closeness, and personal agency are experienced later in life.

Complex trauma can also develop through parentification becoming emotionally, practically, or relationally responsible at an age when you should have been cared for. This might look like managing a caregiver’s emotions, mediating conflict, growing up too fast, or learning to rely entirely on yourself because support wasn’t available. Over time, the nervous system learns that safety comes from staying competent, vigilant, and needed rather than supported.

C-PTSD therapy works at this root level. My approach integrates EMDR, somatic therapy, and movement-based work to help your body safely process what it learned to hold. Rather than repeatedly revisiting traumatic experiences, we focus on building capacity in the present, restoring a felt sense of safety and attunement, supporting nervous system regulation, and creating the conditions for lasting emotional and relational repair.

When C-PTSD is misidentified or misunderstood

Complex PTSD is often overlooked because its symptoms don’t always resemble trauma in the traditional sense. Instead, the effects of C-PTSD often overlap with or resemble other conditions, including ADHD, OCD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, chronic low self-worth, and persistent negative self-talk. Many people spend years treating what looks like a focus issue, anxiety problem, or mood disorder without realizing these patterns are connected to a nervous system shaped by long-term stress and adaptation.

These diagnoses aren’t necessarily wrong but they can be incomplete when the deeper survival pattern hasn’t been named. Medication can be helpful for managing certain symptoms, but on its own it often doesn’t address the underlying relational and nervous system imprint of complex trauma.

When C-PTSD isn’t recognized, treatment often focuses on managing symptoms rather than addressing their source. A trauma-informed, body-based approach helps connect the dots offering clarity, relief, and a framework that explains why certain patterns persist and how meaningful change becomes possible when the nervous system is supported, not pushed.

Many people with Complex PTSD don’t think of themselves as “traumatized.” What they notice instead are patterns that feel familiar, frustrating, or hard to explain responses that don’t always match what’s happening in the present.

You might recognize yourself in experiences like these:

• Emotional waves and flashbacks such as shame, fear, sadness, or panic that feel sudden, intense, or hard to shake
• Hypervigiliance. Always being a little on guard, scanning for tension in the room, or having trouble fully relaxing
• Relationship patterns like people-pleasing, over-explaining, pulling away during conflict or feeling torn between closeness and distance with fear of abandonment.
• Chronic guilt or self-blame believing everything is your fault even when you know it’s not. Feeling overly responsible for others, struggling to rest, or feeling guilty when you’re not “holding it together”
• Negative beliefs accompanied by a harsh inner voice or chronic self-criticism, even when you know logically that you’re doing your best
• Difficulty knowing what you need or want, or feeling disconnected from your emotions or sense of direction
• Numbing or dissociation spacing out, detaching, or feeling distant from your body. 
• Ongoing physical symptoms such as chest or stomach tightness, jaw or shoulder tension, headaches, fatigue, or feeling exhausted despite resting

These patterns aren’t signs of weakness or failure. They’re signals from a nervous system that adapted to get through experiences where safety and support weren’t reliable. Over time, these adaptations can lead to burnout, emotional depletion, and a sense of losing touch with yourself. If these patterns feel familiar. C-PTSD therapy can help you understand these responses with compassion and gradually create new experiences of choice, ease, and connection. 

You may benefit from C-PTSD therapy if:

• You feel stuck in survival mode, even though your life looks “better” now
• Small triggers lead to big emotional reactions
• You struggle to trust others or feel safe in close relationships
• You have difficulty setting boundaries or asking for help
• You disconnect, shut down, or numb when overwhelmed
• You feel chronically responsible, exhausted, or burned out from always holding things together
• You long for connection or belonging, but pull away from relationships, communities, or structured spaces out of fear that closeness will come at the cost of your autonomy, safety, or voice
• You keep repeating old patterns despite wanting something different

If you’ve lived through emotional neglect, inconsistent caregiving, parentification, identity-based trauma, or relational harm that still shapes how you move through the world, C-PTSD therapy can support you in building internal safety, clarity, and more freedom in how you respond both within yourself and in relationship.

My approach to C-PTSD therapy is steady, relational, and deeply body-centered. Complex trauma doesn’t resolve through insight alone; it requires working with the nervous system, attachment patterns, and the emotional imprints left by long-term stress and unmet needs. I pay close attention to pacing, safety, and attunement so your system isn’t pushed faster than it can integrate.

In our work together, I support healing through:

• Somatic therapy to help your body settle, track sensation, and reduce overwhelm so you can stay present without bracing or shutting down
• EMDR to gently reprocess traumatic memories, emotional flashbacks, and deeply held beliefs that formed in survival mode
• Movement-based practices to restore a sense of agency, choice, and connection to your body especially if you learned early on to override your needs
• Attachment-focused work to address relational wounds, including parentification, over-responsibility, difficulty receiving support, or fear of closeness
• Creative and embodied tools that allow parts of you to express what was never safe, possible, or welcome to feel at the time
• Because complex trauma often involved having to grow up too fast, take care of others, or rely on yourself, our work emphasizes learning what it feels like to be supported now. We focus on building capacity slowly and intentionally, so healing becomes something your system can trustnot another thing you have to push through.

You don’t have to force your healing here. We move collaboratively and at a pace that feels sustainable, allowing real change to take root in your body, your relationships, and your sense of self.

• Healing childhood and developmental experiences: emotional neglect, unstable or inconsistent caregiving, chaotic environments, or having to grow up too fast.
• Current relationship satisfaction: noticing how early experiences, trauma, or long-term stress shaped patterns in dating, partnership, or closeness.
• Managing emotional overwhelm: understanding how your nervous system responds to stress and learning how to pause, regulate, and respond instead of reacting or shutting down.
• Learning to respond instead of survive: people-pleasing, perfectionism, hyper-independence, control, numbing, or shutdown especially when these patterns feel exhausting or no longer fit who you are.
• Rebuilding self-worth: working with chronic self-doubt, shame, fear, or a sense of “not enoughness,” even when things look good on the outside.
• Following through on your dreams: exploring what gets in the way of acting on your ideas, creativity, or desires especially when fear, self-doubt, or freeze responses make it hard to trust yourself or take the next step.
• Belonging and being yourself: exploring parts of you that learned to stay quiet, adaptable, or invisible in order to feel accepted at home, in relationships, or in the world.

You don’t need to organize your story or know how everything connects before we begin. Together, we listen for patterns in your body, emotions, and relationships and move at a pace that allows your system to feel supported as we work toward greater ease, clarity, and choice.