Medical Trauma

Experiencing a serious illness, injury, or medical emergency can deeply shake your sense of safety and overwhelm your ability to cope. Medical trauma occurs when painful or frightening medical experiences leave a lasting impact on both your mind and body, affecting how you feel long after medical treatment ends.  Even when treatment is successful and goes according to plan, bodies don’t innately “understand” the healing purpose of medical interventions, and can react to even routine interventions, such as dental work or gynecological exams.

If you’re dealing with medical trauma, you might struggle with flashbacks, avoid places or people that remind you of the experience, feel constantly on edge, or have difficulty trusting others—including your healthcare providers. Our therapists specialize in healing trauma using somatic, body-based therapies like EMDR and Somatic Experiencing to gently release stored stress and help you rebuild a sense of safety within your body.

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Connecting With Your Body’s Wisdom

Healing from medical trauma isn’t about forgetting what happened or pretending it didn’t affect you. It’s about learning to listen to your body’s story and honoring the emotions beneath the surface. Just like caring for a physical wound might mean changing bandages or taking medicine—even when it’s uncomfortable—emotional healing also takes time and gentle attention. Both kinds of healing can feel hard at moments, but each step helps you move closer to feeling whole again.

Reconnecting With Self After Medical Trauma

Though overwhelming and painful, medical trauma can also open the door to profound healing. It can strip away the distractions, bringing your attention to what your body and mind truly need. This experience invites deep reflection—asking honest questions about safety, trust, and resilience. Though challenging, these moments can become powerful steps toward reclaiming your sense of peace and wholeness.

How We Help

Our somatic therapies guide you to reconnect with your body and gently release the tension and overwhelm left behind by medical trauma. Through breathwork, gentle movement, and mindful awareness, we work together to calm your nervous system and create space for healing. For some, optional low-dose psychedelic (psycholytic) therapy can deepen this process. Together, we’ll support your journey not just to recovery, but to helping you find new strength, resilience, and meaning beyond the trauma.

FAQs

If you’ve been through a scary illness, injury, or medical experience that still haunts you, it might be medical trauma. You could be experiencing flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, depression, avoidance, anxiety around doctors, or feeling nervous and on edge even when you’re safe. If these feelings stick around and affect your daily life, it’s a sign your body and mind need some gentle healing and support. If you are unsure, reach out for an assessment.

YES! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. “I couldn’t believe how my 3 year old is thriving after heart surgery,” explains K., mother of A., “Heather’s expertise in surgery preparation was invaluable. Blending storytelling, art therapy, EMDR and somatic work gave A. confidence and lowered our anxiety. The doctor’s were shocked at how quickly she healed. I have no doubt the somatic preparation made a huge difference.”

We tailor medical trauma therapy by guiding you through a healing process that connects your thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and relationships—all working together to support lasting change. This means we don’t just focus on what you think or feel, but also on how trauma lives in your body, helping you gently release stored tension and build new patterns of safety. Using methods like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems, we support each part of you as you move through cycles of insight, release, and integration. The goal isn’t to “fix” you but to help you reclaim wholeness, so the past no longer controls your present.

We help those suffering from medical trauma understand their triggers and practice self-compassion. Trauma-informed therapy, such as EMDR can help process traumatic memories and reduce PTSD symptoms. With treatment, we help people anxious in healthcare settings develop open communication skills to use with medical providers and take small steps towards trust over time.

Other issues we treat

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Depression

Depression isn’t always obvious. For many people, especially those with a history of trauma, depression doesn’t show up as sadness or tears — it shows up as numbness, fatigue, disconnection, or a sense of not really being here.

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Self Esteem

Overcoming low self-esteem is less like becoming a new person, and more like finally coming home to yourself.

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Grief & Loss

Grief can feel like an unpredictable, exhausting tidal force—physical, emotional, and haunting all at once. Whether you’re grieving the finality of death or a more ambiguous loss—a breakup, estrangement, miscarriage, the loss of a role, dream, youth, abilities, innocence, job, home, faith, or worldview—grief shows up when something deeply meaningful is gone.

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Social Anxiety

Social anxiety isn’t just shyness. It’s the deep desire to connect—paired with a nervous system that responds to connection like it’s a threat.

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Career Stress & Burnout

The pressures of modern life are real. The fast pace and multi-dimensional nature of life – work, school, family, social challenges and the baseline intensity of life can inspire us or push us beyond our limits.

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Chronic Pain

Is pain in your body—or your brain? The truth is, pain isn’t just physical. It’s also shaped by your emotions, thoughts, and even your relationships.

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Online therapy

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