Healing After Abuse

Finding Your Safe Space

Abuse, whether physical, emotional, within relationships, or through human trafficking, can shake your sense of safety and worth. There is room here for healing. This is a place where your story will be held with care, where every part of you is welcomed, and where vulnerability can begin to feel safe again.

What It Looks Like to Be Struggling

  • You feel stuck in shame, fear, or guilt that shadows every decision.

  • You put others’ emotions ahead of your own, scrambling to feel safe.

  • Maybe you’ve tried to move forward in a new relationship, but something keeps pulling you back: flashbacks, triggers, overwhelming reactions, distrust, fear, confusion…

  • You wonder if anyone could really understand what you’ve been through without minimizing it or giving advice.

How Can You Best Be Supported?

Everyone has a perspective. Everyone has advice. No one really gets it.

Here is how I can support:

  • A therapist who gets it—who sees the weight of abuse and trauma without pushing you into shame or action.

  • A space where your emotions aren’t judged, where you can hold them, name them, and feel less alone.

  • A place to rebuild safety: inside yourself, in relationships, in your body.

  • Tools to move from survival mode to feeling more whole, empowered to choose your future.

How I Work (It’s Not Just Talking)

My approach is grounded in Internal Family Systems (IFS) + Attachment Theory + a Strength-Based/Trauma-Informed lens. What that means practically:

  • We’ll explore the different “parts” of you—those small scared parts, the angry ones, the protectors—and learn how to calm what’s reactive.

  • We’ll uncover how early attachment experiences continue to show up in your relationships and sense of safety.

  • We’ll work gently to expand capacity for emotional vulnerability—so you can trust that you deserve support, care, and connection.

  • Together, we’ll uncover the unmet needs that have shaped your relationships and nurture your inner wisdom to guide you toward healthier, more fulfilling ways of meeting them.

What to Expect

  • We begin with safety, letting you feel stable enough to explore.

  • I’ll help you name what you feel—fear, shame, grief—not with frustrating confusion, but with clarity, compassion, and confidence.

  • You’ll gain skills for managing flashbacks or triggers before they take over.

  • Over time, you’ll grow stronger at caring for yourself with the same intensity you once reserved only for others.

  • You’ll learn to trust your inner wisdom, connecting inward to gently soothe fear, anger, anxiety, and loneliness, rather than pushing them aside.

  • You’ll know how to access: Calmness, Curiosity, Clarity, Compassion, Confidence, Courage, Creativity, and Connectedness.

    You’ll become your own therapist.

    (Then…you’ll fire me. Joyfully, confidently, and exuberantly.)

“Hey, you’re a guy. Isn’t that weird?”

I do identify as male. Most, but not all, of my clients who are or have suffered abuse identify as female. Oftentimes, people seek out therapists who identify as the same gender as themselves. For many good reasons. If gender is a roadblock on your path to healing, there is support that looks, acts, and breathes more like you, and I would be happy to assist you in your search. If however, you made it this far, and you’re curious about what having a male identifying therapist working with you in these spaces can offer, read on.

A corrective emotional experience happens when, in a safe and supportive space, you get to experience something different from the hurtful patterns of the past. For many survivors of abuse, relationships have carried fear, betrayal, or imbalance of power. In therapy, those patterns can begin to shift.

Working with a male-identifying therapist can add to this process by offering a new, healing experience of safety, respect, and care in a relationship with a man. It allows space to rebuild trust, to feel heard without judgment, and to explore what healthy connection can look like. This dynamic can become a powerful part of the therapeutic alliance, helping you reclaim your sense of safety and worth.