Trauma & PTSD Therapy

When the past refuses to stay in the past.

Past experiences that control your present deserve careful, paced attention.

Using trauma-informed approaches that work with your nervous system, we’ll help you process what happened and reduce the intensity of your symptoms. My role is to provide steady guidance while you do this work at a pace that feels safe.

Survival mode doesn’t have to be your default anymore.

Join Sean Lewis for 50 minutes to discuss your story and map a path forward

Signs of Trauma & PTSD

Trauma isn’t just about what happened to you; it’s about what is still happening inside you. Your body remembers even when your mind tries to move on.

If you are reading this, you might recognize these experiences:

Intrusive Reminders: Flashbacks, nightmares, or sudden emotional reactions that transport you back to the event. Something triggers you, and suddenly you aren’t in the present anymore.

The “On Guard” Setting: You are constantly scanning for danger, jumping at sudden noises, unable to feel safe even in objectively safe environments. Your nervous system never fully relaxes.

Avoidance Patterns: You organize your life around not thinking about what happened—avoiding people, places, conversations, or even emotions that might trigger memories.

Numbing Out: You feel disconnected from yourself and others. Positive emotions are muted or absent. You might describe feeling like you’re watching your life from the outside.

The “Defect” Story: You carry a deep sense that what happened was somehow your fault, or that you are fundamentally broken because of it.

Why You Feel This Way (It's Your Nervous System)

Trauma occurs when an experience overwhelms your ability to cope, causing your nervous system to get stuck in a protective response.

During a traumatic event, your brain prioritizes survival. It stores fragments: sensations, images, emotions, without filing them away as “memories.” Because they aren’t filed away, when something in the present reminds you of the past, your body reacts as if the danger is happening now.

This isn’t about being weak or damaged. It’s about biology:

Survival Adaptations: Hypervigilance, emotional shutdown, and avoidance were protective strategies that helped you survive. The problem is they’re still running even though the danger has passed.
Incomplete Processing: Your brain couldn’t safely process the experience at the time. It’s simply waiting for a safe environment to finish the job.

The flashbacks, hypervigilance, and emotional numbness aren’t signs that you’re broken. They’re signs that your nervous system is still trying to protect you from something that already happened.

My Approach to Healing

Working with trauma requires going slow. We establish safety first and never push you faster than your system can handle.

1. Stabilization & Safety Before we touch the trauma itself, we build resources. You’ll learn nervous system regulation skills, grounding techniques, and ways to create a sense of safety in your body and environment. We don’t move forward until you feel steady here.

2. Trauma Processing When—and only when—you are ready, we work with the memories using approaches designed to help your brain “digest” what happened without retraumatizing you. This might include:

Somatic work: Releasing trauma held in the body
Narrative processing: Creating a coherent story so the memory feels like the past
Gradual reconnection: Gently facing trauma-related triggers in a controlled, safe way to reclaim your freedom

3. Integration & Meaning-Making As symptoms reduce, we focus on rebuilding your relationship with yourself, others, and the world. This includes addressing shame, reconnecting with emotions, and finding meaning in what you’ve survived.

Ready to start healing?

Trauma work takes courage, and you don’t have to do it alone. Let’s talk about what paced, careful healing could look like for you.

Assessment, goal-setting, and your personalized plan.

What You Can Expect

Healing from trauma isn’t a straight line. There will be progress, setbacks, and periods where it feels like nothing is changing.

The Foundation: We start with stability. This might feel slow, but it’s essential groundwork.

The “Thawing”: As we process old memories, you might feel emotions that have been frozen for a long time. This can be intense, but it’s a sign that your system is finally metabolizing what it couldn’t before. We’ll navigate this together.

The Goal: You won’t “delete” the memory, and you might always carry some sensitivity. But you’ll develop the capacity to be present in your life without constantly bracing for danger. The past becomes a memory, not something that hijacks your present.

Recovery is possible. Survival mode doesn’t have to be your permanent state.