Seattle Trauma Counseling is a collective of licensed trauma specialists treating trauma and PTSD with somatic, body-based therapy.
Our somatic, body-based therapies include: EMDR, Brainspotting, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems and related methods that work with the nervous system, not just the story.
We see clients in person in Edmonds and Kirkland and online across Washington State, and every therapist offers a free consultation.
Traumatic experiences entail a threat to life or overall well-being, but any situation that leaves a person feeling overwhelmed and alone can be traumatic, even if it doesn't involve physical harm. It's not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but one's interpretation of the event. The more anxious, panicky or paralyzed a person feels, the more likely the person has been traumatized.
Clinicians group trauma symptoms into four patterns. Re-experiencing: intrusive memories, nightmares, flashbacks, or intense reactions to reminders. Avoidance: steering your life around people, places and conversations that touch the memory. Changes in mood and thinking: shame, numbness, self-blame, or feeling disconnected from people you love. And a nervous system stuck on alert: startling easily, trouble sleeping and concentrating, or the opposite, shutting down and spacing out. You do not need
One of the hardest things about trauma is recognizing it in yourself. Most people minimize what happened to them, “it wasn't that bad,” “others had it worse,” and the effects get mistaken for personality. In daily life, unrecognized trauma often looks like this:
You are exhausted by ordinary life, yet cannot truly relax, even on vacation, even when everything is fine.
You manage everyone's feelings, avoid conflict at almost any cost, or feel responsible for keeping the peace.
Your reactions sometimes feel bigger than the moment: a tone of voice, a smell, a certain kind of silence can flood you with fear, shame or anger.
Closeness feels dangerous. You want connection and brace against it at the same time, or you pick people who repeat old patterns.
You go blank or watch yourself from a distance when things get intense, and parts of your past are foggy or missing.
Your body keeps the score: chronic tension, stomach problems, poor sleep, startling easily, always scanning the room.
You have collected diagnoses over the years, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and treatment for each has helped only partly, because the layer underneath was never addressed.
None of these alone proves trauma, and you do not need to be certain to reach out. A useful rule of thumb: distress in the weeks after something painful is a normal response. When symptoms last more than a month, interfere with your work, relationships or sleep, or you keep finding yourself asking whether what happened to you counts, it is worth talking to a trauma specialist.
Our entire practice is built on the understanding van der Kolk describes: trauma lives in the body and nervous system, not only in memory. Depending on your history and goals, your treatment may draw on EMDR, delivered by our certified EMDR therapists, Brainspotting, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems for trauma, Lifespan Integration, or Trauma Release Exercises, movement-based and body-based methods that help you process and release trauma stored in the body rather than only talk about it.
For clients who want concentrated progress, therapy intensives compress weeks of work into extended sessions. Our care is trauma-informed and phase-based throughout: effective trauma therapy does not begin by diving into memories, it starts by building the safety and stability to approach them without being overwhelmed, and it moves at your pace.
If you have been searching for a trauma specialist or a therapist specializing in trauma near you, this is the difference we offer: every clinician at Seattle Trauma Counseling is a licensed trauma specialist, treating trauma is not one thing we do, it is the thing.
The team includes certified EMDR therapists, a Level II Sensorimotor Psychotherapy practitioner certified in Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment under its creator Dr. Janina Fisher, and clinicians with advanced training in dissociation through the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Meet the team and we will help you match with the right therapist for your history.
The strongest evidence supports trauma-focused therapies: EMDR, Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure, with EMDR notable for requiring far less detailed retelling of the trauma. For complex and developmental trauma, phase-based somatic approaches such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy add what memory-focused methods alone can miss: work with the nervous system itself. The best therapy is also the one you can actually tolerate and stay with, which is why we match the method to you rather than the other way around.
Common signs include reacting to present situations with fear or shame that feels bigger than the moment, chronic anxiety with no clear cause, numbness or spacing out, difficulty trusting people, and a body that cannot seem to relax even when life is objectively fine. You do not need to identify a specific event. If your nervous system behaves as though danger is near when it is not, that pattern has a history, and therapy for past trauma can change it.
Yes, and it is common. Many people never connect their anxiety, irritability, numbness or relationship struggles to earlier experiences, especially when the trauma was chronic rather than one dramatic event, or happened in childhood where it simply felt like normal life. Symptoms can also surface years later, triggered by a birth, a loss, a health scare or even success and safety, when the nervous system finally has room to feel. If the signs above feel familiar, that recognition itself is worth taking seriously.
Yes. This is one of the main reasons people choose somatic trauma therapy. Approaches like EMDR, Brainspotting and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy work with the memory's emotional and bodily components without requiring you to narrate the events repeatedly. You stay in control of what you share and when.
Trauma keeps the body's threat systems switched on. That can look like muscle tension and bracing, a racing heart, digestive problems, exhaustion that sleep does not fix, startle responses, and a nervous system that swings between high alert and shutdown. This is why our treatment works with the body directly: the body is the keeper of traumatic memory, and lasting healing has to include it.
PTSD is treated with trauma-focused psychotherapy, sometimes alongside medication prescribed by a physician. Single-incident trauma often responds within a few months of focused work; complex and developmental trauma takes longer because stabilization comes first, and some clients accelerate progress with therapy intensives. A good trauma therapist will never rush your nervous system past what it can integrate.
Yes, complex and developmental trauma is one of our central specialties, including dissociation, which most clinical programs barely touch. You can read more on our complex trauma page, and our free consultation is the place to talk through your specific history.
Five of the most recognizable signs are: intrusive memories or flashbacks that arrive uninvited; nightmares and disturbed sleep; avoiding people, places or conversations connected to what happened; feeling constantly on edge, startling easily and scanning for danger; and emotional numbness, feeling detached from people you love or from life itself. Many people also carry persistent shame or self-blame. If several of these have lasted more than a month, a trauma assessment is worth your time.
Both have strong evidence, and the honest answer is that it depends on the person. Trauma-focused CBT works through examining and reframing thoughts and requires detailed engagement with the memory; EMDR reprocesses the memory with far less retelling, which many trauma survivors find more tolerable, and research finds it works at least as well, often in fewer sessions. For complex trauma, either is typically combined with stabilization and body-based work first. We provide EMDR through certified EMDR therapists and will tell you honestly in a free consultation which approach fits your history.
Most models describe three broad stages, and our phase-based care follows them: first safety and stabilization, building the internal and external steadiness to do the work; then processing, where traumatic material is approached and integrated using methods like EMDR or Sensorimotor Psychotherapy; and finally reconnection, rebuilding life, identity and relationships beyond the trauma. Recovery is rarely a straight line through these stages, and revisiting an earlier stage is part of the process, not a failure of it.
It can. Untreated PTSD often generalizes: more triggers, more avoidance, a smaller life, and higher risk of depression, substance use and physical health problems as the nervous system stays chronically activated. Some people do recover naturally, but if symptoms have persisted beyond a few months, waiting rarely improves the odds, and treatment works at any stage, including decades after the events.
We are a private-pay practice, and every therapist can provide a superbill for out-of-network reimbursement, which many plans offer. Fees are set by each therapist and discussed in your free consultation, with no obligation.
Contact us to schedule a free consultation session. In Person In Kirkland And Edmonds, Online Across Washington