Holistic Trauma Therapy
healing for the mind, body and soul
Therapy for Trauma Recovery
“I promise you can still make a beautiful life for yourself even if you lost years of it to abuse, mental illness, or trauma”
In the process of trauma therapy, we recover the “you” that lies beneath your trauma & survival responses. The symptoms you are experiencing are not necessarily permanent, and can be successfully treated with a holistic mindbody approach.
What is trauma?
The term “trauma” comes from the Ancient Greek word meaning “wound” or “damage”. Similarly to physical wounds, distressing events can leave lasting impacts with varying levels of severity. Trauma can change the way the brain functions, with lasting impacts on mood and wellbeing.
Although trauma and related disorders are most often considered to be mental health concerns, trauma also impacts the nervous system significantly, influencing our ability to feel safe, comfortable and able to connect with others. Because the nervous system plays an important role in regulating physical processes such as digestion and immune function, our bodies also feel the impact of trauma.
The impacts of trauma will vary person to person. They can persist in some of the following ways: flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, anger, irritability, mood swings, insomnia, gastrointestinal disturbances, muscular tension, chronic pain, numbness, avoidance of emotions, shame, guilt, grief, depression, dissociation, fear, terror, anxiety, people pleasing behaviours, eating disorders, overworking, self harm and suicidal ideation.
People who have experienced traumatic events can develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), or dissociative disorders. However, many people who do not meet the diagnostic criteria for these conditions could still benefit from trauma treatment.
A Holistic Approach
The Panchamaya Koshas describe a yogic way of understanding our multidimensional experience as human beings. While all 5 koshas or layers are separated here, we can understand each layer as being interwoven, influencing each other regularly.
When we experience stress, trauma or illness, all layers of our experience are often impacted. For example, we may experience chronic pain, high levels of anxiety, self-critical thoughts, trouble regulating our emotions, hypervigilance and disconnection from our spirituality.
A holistic approach to recovery considers and tends to the needs of each of these areas, so that you can truly heal.
Healing is a
creative process.
We may more readily know what we don’t want, or what we are healing from. Therapy also explores what we do want, and what we are healing for.
Therapy offers a warm and compassionate space to be with our lowest lows, and deepest hurts. Our ability to face these hard truths is made possible by all the ways we simultaneously reach for safety, care, connection and joy. These inputs influence our nervous system, over time enabling our capacity to dream a new way forward for ourselves.
While you may not have had control over what happened to you, I can help you to gradually expand your choices over how you feel, think and act in present day. My goal is for you to have more options than you did before.
How it works
You can choose yoga therapy, psychotherapy, or both.
You can change your mind about your chosen modality at any time.
Embodied Yoga Therapy
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In yoga therapy, we tend to focus on your physical body, nervous system responses, and your connection to spirit.
Embodied yoga therapy offers an opportunity to reconnect with your body and regulate your nervous system. Offered from a trauma-informed, compassion-focused perspective, the teachings and practices of yoga can offer expand awareness and increase agency over thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
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Yoga therapy sessions typically begin with a check-in. You may come knowing how you are feeling already, or I can help you explore this with a guided self-inquiry practice that gentle explores your physical, energetic, mental/emotional, intuitive and spiritual experience.
Based on your experience, we will respond with yoga practice co-curated to support you in the moment. This may include:
yoga philosophy applications (incl. yamas & niyamas),
postures and movement (asana),
breath practices (pranyama),
meditation (dhyana & dharana),
self-reflection (svadhyaya),
and guided rest practices (savasana, yoga nidra).
I may curate music and poetry to support your experience.
Before your appointment, I recommend setting up a yoga mat, pillows and blankets. If you have any additional yoga props (blocks, bolster, eye pillow), you can bring them but they are not required.
Psychotherapy
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In psychotherapy, we tend to focus on exploring your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, experiences and relationships to others.
This can facilitate deeper understanding into our patterns, including why we think, feel and respond the ways that we do. From a nervous-system informed perspective, we typically come to understand how the patterns which once kept us safe may need updating. This understanding can inform our self-compassion as a foundation from which we can work on building new patterns over time.
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Psychotherapy typically takes place as a conversation. You can arrive with a topic or experience you’d like to explore, or I can help guide you.
While sharing your story may be an important part of your healing journey, you will never be required to share “what happened to you”. We can address the resulting thoughts, feelings and behaviours that the event(s), and ultimately heal without digging for them.
Typically, somatic (body), emotional or cognitive memories will emerge when they are ready to be processed, and I deeply respect your timeline and readiness.
Integrated Therapy
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While psychotherapy’s strengths lie in helping you to think and relate to others in new ways, yoga therapy and somatic (body) practices can help you to feel differently from the inside out.
Working together, integrated therapy facilitates new ways of feeling, thinking and relating over time. Clients often gain better understanding of what their needs are, how to meet those needs, and how to advocate for their needs in their relationships.
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Typically, integrated therapy sessions will include talk therapy woven with embodied practices curated for your own personal needs.
If possible, I recommend 75-minute sessions so that we have adequate time for both. If you select 50-minute sessions, we may have some sessions that are more focused on talking, and some more focused on practicing, depending on what is most supportive for you that day.
At-home therapy
My psychotherapy and yoga therapy sessions are offered online via video call.
Fees
50-minute session: $160 CAD | 75-minute session: $220 CAD.
If you have benefits that cover “psychotherapy” in Ontario you can claim our sessions to your insurance provider with the receipt provided after our session.
Common Questions
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“Trauma is a psychic injury, lodged in our nervous system, mind, and body, lasting long past the originating incident(s), triggerable at any moment.
It is a constellation of hardships, composed of the wound itself and the residual burdens that our woundedness imposes on our bodies and souls:
the unresolved emotions they visit upon us; the coping dynamics they dictate; the tragic or melodramatic or neurotic scripts we unwittingly but inexorably live out; and, not least, the toll these take on our bodies” (Gabor Maté)
It’s important to know that trauma is not uncommon. In fact, at least 70% of people worldwide have experience a traumatic event in their lifetime.
It is very common for trauma survivors to minimize their experiences. Please know that no struggle is too small to seek support.
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You may still resonate with a nervous-system based approach even if you don’t meet diagnostic criteria for a trauma disorder or have not pursued formal assessment.
No diagnosis is required to heal in therapy, and no experience is too small to seek help. If you’re carrying mental and emotional wounds that are affecting your self-perception, daily life, sleep, work or relationships, I encourage you to reach out. Like physical wounds, we tend to benefit from seeking help sooner than later.
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You can do one or the other, or integrate them into one comprehensive treatment. Yoga/somatic therapy can be incredibly supportive when talking is challenging or inadequate to address your experience. It offers a nonverbal way of addressing the wounds we carry. As we build nervous system regulation skills through yoga practice, you may find more need or readiness to explore talk therapy.
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Yoga therapy sessions typically begin with a check-in. You may come knowing how you are feeling already, or I can help you explore this with a guided self-inquiry practice that gentle explores your physical, energetic, mental/emotional, intuitive and spiritual experience.
Based on your experience, we will respond with yoga practice especially curated to support you in the moment. This may include:
yoga philosophy applications (incl. yamas & niyamas),
postures and movement (asana),
breath practices (pranyama),
meditation (dhyana & dharana),
self-reflection (svadhyaya),
and guided rest practices (savasana, yoga nidra).
I may curate music and poetry to support your experience. You can have sessions focused on yoga therapy exclusively, or we can integrate practices with talk therapy.
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Before your appointment, I recommend setting up a yoga mat, pillows and blankets. If you have any additional yoga props (blocks, bolster, eye pillow), you can bring them but they are not required.
Our session will be on a video call, and I will guide you through the practice verbally and demonstrate visually as needed. You are always free to ask questions or share what is happening for you.
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While your needs may vary, weekly sessions tend to be ideal for most people. Weekly sessions typically allow us to tend to your day-to-day experiences while exploring pertinent topics/experiences in more depth.
Biweekly sessions can also be a good option to maintain a sense of continuity.
If committing to a regular session frequency doesn’t work for you right now, I’m happy to schedule sporadically as needed. We will work with the time/resources you have!
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If you are in Ontario and you have benefits for “psychotherapy” you can use them for our session. You will receive an invoice after our session, which you can pay by e-transfer and submit the receipt to your insurance company for reimbursement.
Would you like to discuss how therapy could support you?
The most important factor influencing the success of therapy is your connection with the therapist. I offer free consultation phone calls to connect and see if I can offer the support you need with no pressure to book a session afterwards.
Want to learn more?
I publish weekly articles on substack about holistic trauma recovery.
