• Amy Hertle Counseling Trauma-aware Therapy

Trauma-aware Therapy

Trauma-aware Therapy

Healing from the Impact of Traumatic Experiences

Trauma can result from a wide range of frightening, distressing, or overwhelming experiences, whether acute, chronic, or complex. Examples include:

  • Community violence or disasters

  • Childhood abuse, neglect, or bullying

  • Intimate partner violence

  • Physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse

  • Medical crises or auto accidents

  • Loss of a loved one or ending of relationships

  • Addiction in yourself or a loved one

  • Spiritual or religious abuse

  • Witnessing another’s traumatic experience

  • Highly stressful environments

This list is not exhaustive. Trauma is any experience that overwhelms your thoughts, emotions, or body, leaving a lasting, maladaptive memory. It can affect your mental and physical health and alter how you relate to yourself, others, and the world.

Symptoms of Trauma

Trauma can manifest in emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physical ways, including:

  • Recurrent, distressing memories or nightmares

  • Hypervigilance, being easily startled, or feeling “on guard”

  • Sleep disturbances or fatigue

  • Anxiety, fear, guilt, shame, or self-blame

  • Irritability, anger, mood swings, or aggressive behavior

  • Difficulty concentrating or memory problems

  • Withdrawal from relationships or loss of interest in activities

  • Self-destructive behaviors such as substance use or reckless actions

  • Muscle tension, racing heartbeat, or unexplained aches and pains

  • Negative thoughts about self, others, or the world

  • Emotional numbness or difficulty experiencing positive emotions

  • Hopelessness or difficulty maintaining close relationships

Trauma-Aware Therapy provides a safe, supportive, and structured approach to help you process these experiences, understand their impact, and regain emotional balance, resilience, and connection. With compassionate guidance, you can work through the lingering effects of trauma and move toward healing and empowerment.

Trauma doesn’t have to control your life

Recovery from trauma is possible, but it requires that painful experiences be processed and understood. When left unresolved, traumatic experiences can replay throughout life, influencing emotions, behaviors, and bodily responses, and limiting your ability to live fully and authentically.

In therapy, we work together to explore and uncover how your personal experience of trauma may be impacting your relationships, emotional health, and daily functioning. Using a trauma-aware approach, we address the wide-ranging effects trauma can have on the emotional, relational, psychological, and physical aspects of your life.

My approach integrates the wisdom of Polyvagal Theory with evidence-based strategies and therapeutic modalities, including:

  • EMDR Therapy – reprocessing traumatic memories to reduce their impact

  • Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) – challenging and reframing unhelpful beliefs

  • Grief Recovery Method – addressing losses and unresolved grief

  • TRE® (Tension, Stress, and Trauma Release) – releasing stored tension in the body

  • Mindfulness-based somatic practices – meditation, breathwork, and body awareness to restore balance

This integrative, trauma-informed approach allows you to process past experiences safely, release limiting patterns, and move toward greater resilience, emotional freedom, and the life you desire.

EMDR, Grief Recovery Method, TRE, and mindfulness based somatic approaches.

Want to learn more? Let’s talk!