Crisis Counseling & PTSD

Trauma doesn’t always look like what you’d expect. It’s not limited to combat, violence, or natural disasters. Job loss, divorce, a medical diagnosis, the death of someone close to you, witnessing something disturbing, or even a series of smaller events that accumulated over time can all leave a lasting mark on how your brain and body respond to the world.

If you’ve gone through something difficult and you’re not bouncing back the way you expected to, that’s not a character flaw. It’s your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: staying on high alert after a threat. The problem is that the alert system isn’t turning off, and it’s affecting your sleep, your relationships, your work, and your sense of safety.

You Don’t Have to Relive It

This is important, so I’ll say it clearly: trauma-informed counseling does not require you to recount every detail of what happened. You lived through it once. That was enough. My approach focuses on how the experience is affecting you now and what we can do about it, not on making you tell the story over and over.

I have advanced certification in Critical Incident Stress Management and Debriefing (CISM) from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. I’ve provided trauma response for Fortune 500 companies and traveled nationwide to support organizations through major traumatic events. That experience informs how I work with individuals, too: structured, calm, and focused on recovery rather than re-traumatization.

Types of Traumatic Stress

Not all trauma is the same, and understanding what you’re dealing with helps us choose the right approach:

Acute Stress is a normal response that occurs immediately after a traumatic event. It usually resolves within a few weeks as your brain processes what happened. If it doesn’t resolve, it may develop into something more persistent.

Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD) develops when the acute stress response doesn’t fade. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, emotional numbing, avoidance of reminders, and a persistent sense of being unsafe. PTSD can develop weeks or months after the event.

Complex Trauma results from prolonged or repeated exposure to stressful situations, often in childhood or in relationships where you couldn’t escape. This includes growing up with a parent who was emotionally unavailable, abusive, or unpredictable. Complex trauma often shows up as difficulty trusting people, chronic feelings of shame, and trouble regulating emotions.

Vicarious Trauma affects people who are regularly exposed to others’ traumatic experiences: first responders, healthcare workers, therapists, teachers, journalists. You don’t have to be the one who experienced the event to be affected by it.

How I Treat Trauma

My approach is trauma-informed across every modality I use. That means safety comes first, we go at your pace, and you’re always in control of what we discuss and how deep we go.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) helps you recognize trauma responses as they’re happening, rather than being swept into them. It creates space between the trigger and your reaction.

Cognitive Processing helps you examine the beliefs that formed during or after the trauma (“the world isn’t safe,” “I should have done something,” “I can’t trust anyone”) and evaluate whether those beliefs are still serving you.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) works with the protective parts of you that developed in response to trauma. These parts had a job: keep you safe. But sometimes they keep doing that job long after the danger has passed, and it creates problems in your current life.

For some people, therapy for trauma is shorter than they expect. Once the nervous system learns that the threat is over, the symptoms often decrease significantly. For complex or long-standing trauma, the work takes longer, but progress is still steady and measurable.

What to Expect

The first session is about understanding what you’re going through and what you want to feel different. I won’t push you to talk about anything you’re not ready for. We build trust first, then we do the work.

Sessions are 45 minutes via secure video or telephone, available throughout Texas. For trauma work, many clients find virtual sessions preferable because they’re in their own safe space.

If you’re ready to start healing, reach out or call (512) 771-7621.