Trauma-Informed Therapy in Brooklyn & Across New York
Trauma-informed, body-aware psychotherapy for adults in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and virtually across New York. Collaborative care grounded in safety, choice, and clinical experience.
Trauma does not always appear as a clear memory of one event.
It may show up as the way you brace before closeness, become highly alert in ordinary situations, lose access to words during conflict, or feel disconnected when something matters. Trauma-informed therapy begins by asking not only what happened, but what your mind and body learned to do in order to survive it.
What is trauma-informed therapy?
Trauma-informed therapy is care organized around an understanding of how overwhelming experiences can affect emotion, relationships, attention, beliefs, behavior, and bodily responses. It emphasizes safety, transparency, collaboration, choice, and the active prevention of retraumatization. It also recognizes that culture, identity, community, discrimination, and access to resources shape both the experience of trauma and the path toward recovery.
Trauma-informed does not describe one single treatment. A therapist can be trauma-informed while using different methods. In my practice, the work may integrate verbal psychotherapy, somatic awareness, Dance Movement Therapy, Authentic Movement, and, when separately agreed upon, other body-based supports.
It is also important to distinguish trauma-informed therapy from a specific evidence-based treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. For diagnosed PTSD, trauma-focused treatments such as Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, and EMDR have the strongest research support. I believe in discussing treatment options honestly and referring or collaborating when another approach is more appropriate.
How can trauma-informed therapy help?
People seek trauma-informed therapy for many different experiences: childhood or developmental trauma, relationship trauma, loss, medical experiences, violence, chronic invalidation, psychiatric hospitalization, workplace or performance environments, caregiving, and events that exceeded their ability to cope at the time.
You may notice hypervigilance, emotional flooding, shutdown, numbness, dissociation, shame, difficulty trusting, sleep disruption, a strong startle response, relationship patterns that repeat despite insight, or the feeling that you are never fully safe. These experiences can also have causes unrelated to trauma, so assessment remains important.
Therapy may support increased understanding, greater capacity to notice triggers and protective responses, more choice in relationships, and a less adversarial relationship with your own reactions. No clinician can promise that trauma will be completely resolved, that the nervous system will be permanently reset, or that a particular bodily experience proves what happened in the past.
What happens during a session?
We begin with the present. You do not have to tell every detail of your history before therapy can be useful. We discuss what is happening now, what you want support with, and what helps you remain connected enough to participate. I pay attention to your words as well as changes in breath, movement, gaze, rhythm, tension, and silence.
At times we may slow down and notice a response in the body. At other times, we may stay with conversation, explore a relationship pattern, or identify the meaning you have made from an experience. Movement may help you experiment with distance, boundaries, strength, support, or the ability to stop. The pace is collaborative; you are not required to relive an event or push through overwhelm to prove that you are doing the work.
Trauma-informed therapy also includes practical clinical judgment. If symptoms suggest a need for medical assessment, medication consultation, substance-use treatment, eating-disorder care, intensive outpatient support, or emergency services, we discuss that directly.
Other common questions
No. Movement is one possible language within the therapy, not a requirement. We may work entirely through conversation and subtle body awareness. If movement is used, it can be seated, small, and adapted to your comfort and physical ability. You do not need to be expressive, coordinated, or willing to close your eyes.
Touch is not required in trauma-informed psychotherapy, somatic therapy, or Dance Movement Therapy. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is a separate hands-on service. If that service is considered, we discuss the purpose, locations of contact, alternatives, and your right to change your mind at any point. A history of trauma never creates an obligation to use touch-based treatment.
Yes. I offer secure virtual therapy to adults located throughout New York State. Online trauma-informed therapy can include conversation, grounding, orienting, movement, and attention to bodily responses. Working from home can feel supportive for some people and distracting or insufficiently private for others.
Virtual outpatient therapy is not appropriate for every level of risk or instability. During the consultation and ongoing work, we consider your location, privacy, emergency contacts, current symptoms, and access to local support. When in-person or higher-level care is needed, I will say so.
Trauma-informed therapy can be talk therapy. The difference is not the absence of words but the framework around them. We do not assume that telling the story in detail is always necessary or helpful. We pay attention to consent, pacing, power, protective responses, and what happens while the story is being told.
My body-aware approach also includes information that may not appear in the narrative: a sudden loss of voice, a movement away, a held breath, a collapse in posture, or a need to become very still. These observations are invitations to curiosity, not proof of a diagnosis or a hidden memory.
This approach may fit adults who want depth, have complex or layered histories, feel caught in patterns that insight alone has not changed, or need a therapist who can work with both psychological and embodied experience. It may also suit people who have felt rushed, overdirected, or reduced to a symptom in previous care.It is not a substitute for emergency or intensive treatment. If you are in active crisis, unable to maintain safety, or need a highly structured PTSD protocol that I do not provide, I will help you identify more appropriate options when possible.
I am a New York State Licensed Creative Arts Therapist and Board-Certified Dance/Movement Therapist with more than 20 years of clinical experience. Sixteen of those years were spent in inpatient psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital, working with adults and adolescents at acute levels of need. That experience continues to inform my assessment, boundaries, and respect for the full range of what a person may be carrying.
I also have advanced training in trauma-informed and somatic modalities, certification in Authentic Movement and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, and training as a provider of SSP and the Rest and Restore Protocol. These methods are integrated selectively rather than applied as a universal formula.
In-person trauma-informed therapy is available in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at 109 N. 12th Street. Virtual therapy is available to adults located throughout New York State. I work with clients from Brooklyn, New York City, and communities across the state who are seeking a relational, embodied approach.
