Sexual Trauma Therapy
Your body holds the story. Healing begins here.
Specialized therapy for survivors of sexual trauma — a safe, unhurried space to reconnect with yourself, rebuild trust, and move toward wholeness at your own pace.
There’s a version of you that existed before. Before the hypervigilance, the shame that doesn’t quite make sense, the feeling of being slightly outside your own life. That version of you isn’t gone. It’s waiting. Trauma-informed therapy is about more than symptom relief. It’s about retrieving the parts of yourself that had to go quiet to keep you safe. This is a space built for exactly where you are: not to push you toward healing faster than feels safe, but to walk alongside you as you find your way back to yourself — slowly, gently, at your pace.
Sexual trauma doesn’t just live in memory — it lives in the body. In the way you brace before being touched. In the exhaustion of a nervous system that never fully powers down. In the moments of dissociation that pull you just slightly out of reach of your own life. Conventional therapy often asks you to talk your way through what happened. But talking alone rarely reaches what the body is holding. The work here is different — somatic, relational, unhurried — designed to meet trauma where it actually lives, so that healing can happen at a depth that lasts.
Address the root of your trauma so you can move from surviving to thriving.
You may recognize yourself here
Sexual trauma doesn’t announce itself the same way in everyone. For some, it looks like what we recognize: flashbacks, nightmares, an inability to be close to another person without fear rising. But for many survivors, it’s quieter than that, and harder to name.
- It can show up as shame that has no clean edges: a feeling of being somehow responsible, dirty, or fundamentally altered, even when part of you knows that isn’t true.
- It can show up as a body that feels borrowed: numb, distant, hard to inhabit, like you’re watching your own life from slightly outside it.
- It can show up as an invisible wall between you and other people: the flinch before closeness, the inability to ask for what you need, the way trust feels like a risk you can no longer afford.
- It can show up in your relationship with desire itself: in wanting and then going cold, in touch that should feel safe but doesn’t, in the strange grief of feeling absent from your own body during intimacy.
- And it can show up in the gaps: memories that come in fragments or not at all, moments of going completely blank, a confusion about why your body responded the way it did, and a shame that has quietly grown in that confusion ever since.
Whatever form it takes in you, this is not weakness. This is not damage. This is a nervous system that did exactly what it needed to do to get you through. And it can learn something different.
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My Approach to Treating Sexual Trauma
Therapy for sexual trauma is not about forcing you to tell your story before you are ready. It is not about pushing for disclosure, rushing toward memory, or measuring progress by how much you can say out loud. It is about creating a space where your experience can be met with steadiness, belief, and care — and where healing can happen at a pace your nervous system can actually tolerate.
In our work together, we move slowly and with intention. We pay attention to what your body is communicating, not just your words. We make room for silence, for not-knowing, for the parts of your experience that don’t yet have language. Nothing is forced. Nothing is required before you are ready.
Over time, this work can help you understand your responses with less shame and more compassion — recognizing them as intelligent adaptations rather than signs that something is wrong with you. It can help you reconnect with your body and your internal signals in a way that begins to feel safer. To make sense of dissociation, fear, or confusion around what happened and how your body responded. To rebuild trust in your own instincts, your boundaries, and your right to say no. To process the ways trauma has shaped your relationships, your sense of self, and your capacity for intimacy.
My approach is relational, trauma-informed, and body-aware. I integrate talk therapy with close attention to the nervous system — to shame, to dissociation, to the ways sexual trauma quietly reshapes attachment, self-concept, and the felt sense of being safe in the world. Because sexual trauma rarely lives in thought alone. It lives in the body, in the breath, in the way you move through a room. The work meets it there.
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Testimonials
Frequently Asked Questions
about trauma treatment
What do you mean by “sexual trauma”?
When I say “sexual trauma,” I’m referring to any sexual experience that felt violating, coerced, unwanted, confusing, or beyond your control—whether it happened once or many times, in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. It can include assault, abuse, coercion, being pressured or manipulated into sex, or situations where you froze or felt unable to say no.
What if I’m not sure it “counts” as sexual trauma?
Many people are unsure whether what happened to them “counts,” especially if they knew the person, didn’t fight back, stayed in the relationship, or felt their body respond in confusing ways. Confusion and self‑doubt are common responses to sexual trauma, not signs that it didn’t matter. You don’t have to have the perfect label before reaching out.
Do I have to tell you everything that happened?
No. You are in charge of what you share, when, and how. We do not rush disclosure or go into details before your system is ready. Therapy can be helpful even if we start by focusing on how you’re feeling now—sleep, anxiety, shame, relationships, body responses—rather than the full story.
I don’t remember everything clearly. Can therapy still help?
Yes. Many survivors have partial, blurry, or fragmented memories, or only remember certain sensations or images. Therapy can still support you in working with the emotions, beliefs, and body responses you notice now. We don’t need a complete timeline in order for healing to happen.
How does sexual trauma therapy help?
Therapy can give you a steadier, nonjudgmental space to process what happened and how it’s affecting you now. Together we might work on:
Understanding your reactions (freeze, numbness, panic, shame, people‑pleasing) as survival responses rather than personal failures.
Reconnecting with your body and internal signals at a pace that feels safe.
Addressing the impact on relationships, trust, boundaries, sexuality, and self‑worth.
Building more choice, self‑compassion, and a sense of safety in your day‑to‑day life.
I feel a lot of shame about my body and sexuality. Is that part of sexual trauma?
It can be. Many survivors carry shame, disgust, or a sense of “brokenness” about their bodies, sexuality, or responses during the trauma. Therapy offers a place to gently unpack where those beliefs came from and begin building a more compassionate, nuanced relationship with your body and sexuality.
How long will therapy last?
Therapy can last any time between a year to many more, as long as you are still progressing from our work. The length of therapy depends on what you want and need, and what you want/need can be fluid and dynamic.
Healing and personal growth is not strict or predictable. You can start off by wanting to address something very specific (e.g. “I want to feel less anxious”), but through our work together could realize a deeper meaning to these anxious symptoms (e.g. “I feel anxious because I am terrified of intimacy” to “I’ve had very familiar experiences of being emotionally suffocated when I was close to people”). Realizing these deeper long-standing issues may then shape the focus and length of treatment.
Regardless of why you are seeking therapy and how long you hope to be in treatment, it is important to remember that your thoughts and input are invaluable to me, and the pace and length of treatment will always be a collaborative discussion.
How often are therapy sessions?
Meeting consistently and stably on a weekly basis will help build safety and trust, which is essential for the work to progress on a deeper level. Biweekly sessions impact the effectiveness of therapy.
Often, meeting less frequently results in a ‘catch up’ type of session and does not allow for the time, space, and emotional capacity needed to address what goes on beneath the surface.
Depending on the level of our work, there are also times when meeting two or more times a week is appropriate, and that will always come from us talking and making that decision together.
Are therapy sessions covered by my insurance?
If you have out-of-network benefits, your insurance may be able to reimburse you for approximately 50%-80% of each session after the out-of-network deductible is met.
Out-of-network psychotherapy coverage varies by carrier and policy. It can be confusing, but we’re here to help! If you aren’t sure whether or not you have out-of-network benefits, we can check for you. Just email your insurance card and date of birth to info@imagineemotionalwellness.com
How do I get started?
Here are 3 simple steps.