Therapy for Complex Trauma in Duncan, BC and Online

Trauma can have a profound impact on our lives, influencing our mood and emotions, sense of self, and relationships with others. I specialize in working with trauma, particularly developmental or childhood trauma. If you grew up in a home that was unpredictable or at times felt unsafe, it likely affects the way you navigate the world as an adult.

If you find yourself stuck in patterns of self-criticism, pessimism, difficulty in relationships, and/or unstable moods, trauma therapy can help.

How does trauma show up?

Trauma can impact people in wide-ranging ways, and those impacts often make sense when we understand trauma as something that overwhelms the nervous system and our capacity to cope. The effects can show up immediately, or emerge months or years later, sometimes in subtle ways.

Here are some of the most common areas trauma can affect:

Nervous system & body

  • Chronic fight/flight (anxiety, hypervigilance, panic)

  • Freeze or shutdown (numbness, dissociation, fatigue)

  • Sleep difficulties, chronic pain, headaches, GI issues

  • Heightened startle response or feeling constantly “on edge”

Emotions

  • Difficulty regulating emotions (big swings or feeling flat)

  • Persistent fear, shame, guilt, or anger

  • Feeling overwhelmed by seemingly small stressors

  • Emotional numbing or difficulty accessing feelings at all

Thoughts & beliefs

  • Negative core beliefs (“I’m unsafe,” “Something is wrong with me,” “I’m not enough”)

  • Self-blame or harsh inner criticism

  • Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions

  • Intrusive memories or rumination

Relationships & attachment

  • Difficulty trusting others or feeling safe with closeness

  • People-pleasing, fawning, or over-functioning in relationships

  • Pulling away, isolating, or avoiding intimacy

  • Strong reactions to perceived rejection or conflict

Sense of self & identity

  • Disconnection from needs, wants, or boundaries

  • Feeling fragmented or “not like myself”

  • Shame-based identity rather than a coherent self-story

  • Difficulty knowing who you are outside of survival roles

Daily functioning

  • Burnout, exhaustion, or reduced capacity

  • Avoidance of places, tasks, or situations

  • Difficulty with work, school, or routines

  • Cycles of overdoing it followed by collapse

An important note

Two people can live through the same traumatic experience and be impacted in very different ways. Even siblings growing up in the same home can respond differently based on their individual nervous system, temperament, role in the family, and the meaning they made of what happened. Each nervous system adapts in the way it needs to survive. Different responses don’t mean one person was hurt more or less, or one person is “weaker”; they simply reflect different ways of surviving.

It’s important to note that the symptoms described above were once adaptive responses, developed to help us survive. With safety, support, and trauma-informed care, nervous systems can heal, patterns can soften, and capacity can grow.

“I don’t want to just blame my parents”

This is a very common concern. Many people struggle with the duality of holding care and empathy for their parents, while also acknowledging the impact some dynamics might have had on them. It’s important to note that working with developmental trauma is not about blaming or villainizing parents or caregivers.

In many cases, parents did the best they could with what they had at the time. At the same time, you may have had experiences where you didn’t feel consistently safe, understood, emotionally held, or supported in the ways you needed. We can hold both.

We don’t need to choose between “they were bad” or “nothing happened.” Therapy is about holding a more complete and compassionate picture of your story. It’s about understanding your experience more fully, so that what happened makes sense in context, and so that you can make sense of how it may still be living in you today.

Many people find that when they can hold both truths together — care for the people who raised them and care for the younger parts of themselves that were impacted.

Often, what brings the most relief is not blame, but finally being able to make sense of your experience in a way that honours all of it — including the parts of you that adapted in order to cope, survive, or stay connected.

What does trauma therapy look like?

There are many different approaches to trauma therapy, and the most effective one depends on you and the kind of trauma you’ve experienced.

My approach to trauma treatment integrates attachment-based therapy, Internal Family Systems, and somatic work.

Historically, many trauma treatments were based on exposure or re-experiencing. The idea was that repeatedly revisiting traumatic memories in a safe environment would reduce their emotional intensity over time. As trauma therapy has evolved, many clinicians now recognize that revisiting traumatic memories is not always necessary. For some people, it can be counterproductive or even re-traumatizing. My approach emphasizes healing in the here-and-now, re-establishing a sense of safety in your body, and reconnecting with parts of yourself that may have been suppressed or pushed away. There is space for compassionately witnessing the burdens parts of you may be carrying, if that feels right for your system.

We can’t change what happened to you. But we can work with, understand, and gently shift the survival strategies that are no longer needed in your adult life.

In my approach to trauma therapy, the first step is developing a steady, attuned relationship where even the most vulnerable parts of you feel safe to emerge. Together, we explore the strategies different parts of you learned to rely on. These might include people-pleasing, perfectionism, pushing others away, clinging tightly to others, or many others that once served an important purpose.

Rather than trying to get rid of these strategies, we approach them with curiosity and respect. We ask these parts why they believe these patterns are still necessary. Often, beneath these protective strategies are younger parts holding immense grief, anger, or sorrow. With care and support, these parts can begin to release what they’ve been carrying and reconnect with their natural, childlike qualities — playfulness, joy, creativity, and curiosity.

Depending on your needs, trauma therapy may include:

  • Learning practical tools to help you feel more grounded in the present moment and better able to manage overwhelm when it shows up.

  • Understanding how trauma and chronic stress can shape patterns like hypervigilance, shutdown, emotional reactivity, avoidance, or difficulty feeling safe even when things are okay.

  • Gently exploring how past experiences may still be showing up in your present-day emotions, body responses, relationships, or sense of self.

  • Working with different parts of yourself that may carry trauma responses, such as the part that protects you by staying alert, shuts things down when things feel too much, or tries to keep you safe by staying in control. We focus on understanding and supporting these parts, not forcing them to change.

  • Paying attention to how trauma is held in the body, such as tension, numbness, fatigue, dissociation, startle responses, or feeling disconnected. We go at a pace that supports safety and stability, gently building in practices that can help you reconnect to your body.

  • Building awareness of your nervous system and how it moves between states of activation and shutdown, helping you better understand your responses and reduce self-blame.

  • Developing a sense of safety and choice in the present moment through grounding, pacing, and resourcing practices that are tailored to your capacity.

  • Gradually processing difficult experiences in a way that feels manageable, without overwhelming your system.

  • Strengthening coping strategies, boundaries, and relational supports that help you feel more steady in daily life.

  • When appropriate, collaborating with your physician or other healthcare providers if medication, assessment, or additional supports may be helpful.

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”

— Carl Jung

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