Trauma Therapy & PTSD Treatment in Fort Lauderdale
Trauma can continue affecting you long after the danger has passed. You may find yourself avoiding certain places or conversations, feeling constantly on guard, struggling with intrusive memories, or reacting strongly to reminders that seem harmless to everyone else.
Our Fort Lauderdale trauma therapists help adults understand and change the patterns that keep the past interfering with the present. Treatment is personalized and may include evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), EMDR, Prolonged Exposure, and other trauma-focused therapies based on your symptoms, history, and goals.
The goal is not to erase what happened. It is to help you feel safer, more in control, and able to participate more fully in your life again.
- What is Trauma?
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Evidence-Based Treatment for Trauma & PTSD
- Trauma-Focused Psychotherapies
- Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
- Prolonged Exposure (PE)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation (STAIR)
- Other Approaches That May Support Trauma Treatment
- Couples Therapy When Trauma Affects the Relationship
- What to Expect From Trauma Therapy
- Meet Our Trauma Therapists in Fort Lauderdale
- Frequently Asked Questions
- More About Trauma, PTSD, and Recovery
What is Trauma?
Trauma can continue affecting you long after the danger or experience itself has ended. You may find yourself constantly on guard, avoiding certain situations, struggling to trust people, feeling disconnected from yourself or others, or reacting strongly to reminders of something that happened months or even years ago.
Traumatic experiences can include:
- Physical or sexual assault
- Childhood abuse or neglect
- Domestic or interpersonal violence
- Serious accidents
- War or combat
- Natural disasters
- Sudden violent or accidental loss
- Threatening experiences related to racism, homophobia, or other forms of discrimination
- Repeated exposure to traumatic events
Some people experience a single traumatic event. Others live through repeated or chronic experiences that shape how they learn to protect themselves, relate to others, or move through the world.
People can experience similar events very differently.
You do not need to decide whether your experience was “traumatic enough” to deserve help. A more useful question is whether what happened is still affecting your emotions, relationships, choices, sense of safety, or ability to live the way you want to live.
Therapy can help you understand those patterns and begin changing the ones that are no longer protecting you.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a mental health condition that can develop after exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. This may include experiencing an event directly, witnessing it, learning about certain traumatic events involving someone close to you, or repeated exposure through particular types of work.
Stress reactions are common after trauma. You may have upsetting memories, feel unusually alert to danger, struggle to sleep, or avoid reminders of what happened. For many people, those reactions gradually decrease.
For others, symptoms persist and begin interfering with relationships, work, sleep, concentration, or everyday life. When a particular pattern of symptoms lasts longer than one month and causes significant distress or impairment, PTSD may be present.
Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD. And you do not need a PTSD diagnosis to benefit from trauma therapy.
A trauma-trained therapist can help you make sense of what you are experiencing, understand how past experiences may be influencing your life today, and determine what type of treatment is most appropriate.
Symptoms of PTSD
Intrusive memories and re-experiencing
Avoidance
Changes in thoughts and mood
Feeling on guard or reactive
Evidence-Based Treatment for Trauma & PTSD
Effective trauma therapy is more than having a safe place to talk about what happened. The right treatment helps you change the thoughts, emotions, avoidance patterns, and reactions that allow trauma to keep influencing your life.
At The Psychology Group, trauma treatment begins with understanding what you are experiencing now, how those symptoms are affecting your life, and what you want to change. Your therapist will also consider your history, preferences, and readiness for different approaches when recommending a treatment plan.
You do not need to know which type of trauma therapy you need before you begin. That is something you and your therapist can determine together.
Trauma-Focused Therapies for PTSD
For people with PTSD, some of the strongest research supports three trauma-focused treatments:
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
Prolonged Exposure (PE)
PE helps reduce fear and avoidance by gradually and intentionally approaching trauma-related memories and situations that are safe but have become associated with danger.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) uses a structured process that includes recalling aspects of traumatic experiences while engaging in bilateral stimulation.
These therapies work differently, and one approach is not automatically right for everyone. Treatment decisions should take into account your symptoms, goals, preferences, clinical needs, and the type of therapy you feel prepared to engage in.
The goal is not simply to become better at coping around the trauma. Effective treatment can help reduce the power it has over your choices, relationships, emotions, and everyday life.
Find the Right Trauma Therapist for You
You don’t need to know exactly what’s wrong or what kind of therapy you need before calling. During a complimentary 15-minute consultation, we’ll learn what you’ve been experiencing and help match you with a therapist whose experience and approach fit what you’re looking for.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
Trauma can change more than how you feel about what happened. It can change what you believe about yourself, other people, and the world.
You may find yourself thinking, “I should have known better,” “I can’t trust anyone,” or “I’m never safe.” In Cognitive Processing Therapy, these beliefs are often called stuck points because they can keep trauma influencing your life long after the event itself has ended.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is an evidence-based treatment for PTSD that helps you identify these patterns, examine whether they still fit the facts, and develop more balanced ways of understanding what happened. Treatment commonly explores beliefs related to safety, trust, control, self-esteem, and intimacy.
CPT does not require you to repeatedly retell every detail of your trauma. The work focuses largely on understanding how the experience changed your thinking and helping you challenge beliefs that continue to contribute to distress.
CPT was originally designed as a 12-session treatment, although the length of therapy can be adjusted based on your needs and progress.
Prolonged Exposure (PE)
After trauma, avoidance can feel protective. You may stay away from certain places, conversations, memories, activities, or situations because they trigger fear, distress, guilt, or other painful emotions.
That avoidance can provide relief in the moment. Over time, though, it can reinforce the sense that those memories or safe situations are still dangerous.
Prolonged Exposure (PE) is an evidence-based treatment for PTSD that helps you gradually approach trauma-related memories and safe situations you have been avoiding. The process is structured and collaborative rather than simply asking you to “face your fears.”
Treatment typically includes learning about PTSD and avoidance, gradually approaching safe situations that have become difficult, and working with traumatic memories in therapy so they can become less distressing and less disruptive.
The goal is not to make you forget what happened or force you through distress. It is to help your brain and body learn that remembering the trauma is different from being back in danger, and that avoidance does not have to keep controlling your life.
PE is commonly completed over approximately 8–15 sessions, although the exact pace and length of treatment can vary based on your needs and progress.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Sometimes you can understand intellectually that an experience is over and still feel as though your mind or body reacts like it is happening now.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based, trauma-focused therapy for PTSD that helps people process distressing memories and reduce the emotional intensity connected to them.
During EMDR, you briefly focus on aspects of a traumatic memory while engaging in bilateral stimulation, such as guided eye movements, alternating taps, or sounds. Treatment also includes preparation, identifying specific memories and beliefs to work on, and helping you develop more adaptive ways of understanding the experience.
EMDR does not erase the memory. The goal is for the experience to become something you remember without it continuing to trigger the same level of distress, fear, shame, or physical reaction in the present.
EMDR follows a structured eight-phase treatment process, although the length of treatment varies depending on your history, symptoms, goals, and response to therapy.
Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation (STAIR)
Trauma can affect more than memories of what happened. It can also make emotions harder to manage and relationships more difficult to navigate.
Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation (STAIR) is a structured, skills-focused therapy designed to strengthen two areas that are often affected by trauma:
- Emotion regulation, including recognizing, understanding, and responding more effectively to difficult emotions
- Interpersonal functioning, including communication, boundaries, trust, and navigating relationships
STAIR may be used on its own or as part of a broader trauma-treatment plan. For some people, building these skills can help them feel better prepared to engage in more directly trauma-focused work.
The goal is not simply to manage symptoms better. It is to help you develop practical skills that make it easier to respond to emotions, relationships, and difficult situations in ways that support the life you want to build.
Other Approaches That May Support Trauma Treatment
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on increasing psychological flexibility: your ability to experience difficult thoughts, emotions, and memories without allowing them to determine what you do next.
Rather than trying to eliminate every uncomfortable internal experience, ACT can help you notice what is happening, make room for difficult emotions, and choose actions that move you toward the relationships, activities, and values that matter to you.
For someone affected by trauma, that can be particularly useful when attempts to avoid painful thoughts or feelings have started limiting life.
Mindfulness-Based Approaches
Trauma can make it difficult to stay connected to the present when your attention is repeatedly pulled toward past experiences or possible future threats.
Mindfulness practices help you notice thoughts, emotions, sensations, and surroundings with greater awareness and less automatic reaction. Some therapists may incorporate mindfulness into trauma treatment to support emotion regulation, present-moment awareness, and the ability to tolerate difficult internal experiences.
Mindfulness is not a substitute for trauma-focused treatment when PTSD is present, but it may be a useful part of a broader treatment plan.
Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
Trauma can also affect the way you experience your body. Some people feel constantly activated or tense, while others feel disconnected or numb.
Trauma-sensitive yoga adapts traditional yoga practices with an emphasis on choice, awareness, and personal control. Rather than pushing toward a particular posture or outcome, the focus is on noticing your body and making intentional choices about movement.
Yoga may support well-being and help some people reconnect with their bodies, but it should be considered a complementary approach rather than a first-line treatment for PTSD.
Couples Therapy When Trauma Affects the Relationship
Trauma does not always affect only the person who experienced it. It can also change communication, trust, emotional closeness, intimacy, conflict, and the way partners respond to each other.
One partner may become more withdrawn, reactive, or guarded. The other may feel unsure how to help, frustrated by the distance, or afraid of saying the wrong thing. Couples who experienced a traumatic event together may also find that they cope with what happened in very different ways.
Couples therapy can help partners understand these patterns, communicate more effectively, rebuild connection, and respond to trauma-related reactions with greater awareness rather than becoming caught in cycles of conflict or withdrawal.
When PTSD or significant trauma symptoms are present, couples therapy may be used alongside individual trauma-focused treatment rather than replacing it. Your therapist can help determine what combination of support makes the most sense for your situation.
What to Expect From Trauma Therapy
Starting trauma therapy can feel like a big decision, especially if you are unsure what you will be expected to talk about or whether therapy will make things feel worse before they get better.
You do not need to arrive ready to tell your entire story. Treatment begins with understanding what is affecting you now and deciding together what would be most helpful.
1. We Help You Find the Right Therapist
Your first step is to contact The Psychology Group or schedule a Therapist Match Call. We’ll learn what you are looking for, answer initial questions, and help match you with a trauma therapist whose experience and approach fit your needs.
2. Your Therapist Gets to Know the Full Picture
During your first sessions, your therapist will learn about your current symptoms, relevant history, relationships, strengths, goals, and how trauma may be affecting your life today.
You and your therapist will then develop a treatment plan together. Depending on your needs, that may include CPT, PE, EMDR, skills-focused work, or a combination of approaches.
3. Treatment Moves Beyond Simply Talking About What Happened
Trauma therapy is not just repeatedly discussing painful experiences. Depending on the treatment you choose, sessions may involve examining trauma-related beliefs, approaching situations you have been avoiding, processing distressing memories, strengthening emotion-regulation skills, or changing patterns that developed as a way of protecting yourself.
The work is active, but it should also have a clear purpose: helping the past have less influence over how you live now.
4. You and Your Therapist Track What Is Changing
Trauma treatment can sometimes feel emotionally demanding, particularly when you begin approaching memories, emotions, or situations you have avoided. Your therapist will pay attention to how you are responding and work with you to adjust the pace or treatment approach when appropriate.
Progress may look like fewer intrusive memories, less avoidance, feeling safer in situations that once triggered you, responding differently in relationships, or having more freedom to make choices based on what matters to you rather than what trauma taught you to fear.
The goal is not to erase what happened. It is to help you reach a point where what happened no longer has the same control over your present life.
Meet Our Trauma Therapists in Fort Lauderdale
Finding the right trauma therapist involves more than finding someone who treats PTSD. Different therapists bring different training, areas of focus, and therapeutic styles to the work.
The Psychology Group has multiple clinicians who work with trauma, allowing us to help match you with a therapist based on what you are experiencing, the type of treatment you may benefit from, and the kind of therapeutic relationship that feels right for you.
Hailey Fitzpatrick
Licensed Mental Health Counselor
Hailey works extensively with adults experiencing trauma and PTSD and is trained in EMDR. She also incorporates evidence-based approaches including CBT and DBT skills to help clients process difficult experiences, manage intense emotions, and change patterns that are interfering with their lives.
Dr. Savannah Walker
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Dr. Savannah works with adults and young adults affected by trauma, including racial trauma, identity-related experiences, and the effects of marginalization. Her integrative approach draws from interpersonal, psychodynamic, ACT, and solution-focused therapies and emphasizes understanding how past experiences continue to shape present-day patterns and relationships.
Dr. Rachel Christopher
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Dr. Rachel works with teens, young adults, and adults experiencing trauma alongside concerns such as anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and perfectionism. Her approach is grounded largely in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and she has advanced training in Trauma-Focused CBT.
José Ramirez
LMHC, CST
José works with adults experiencing PTSD and trauma, particularly when trauma overlaps with relationships, sexuality, identity, or LGBTQ+ concerns. His clinical background includes crisis, inpatient, community mental health, and outpatient settings.
José is also bilingual and provides therapy in both English and Spanish.
Frequently Asked Questions
Reviews of The Psychology Group
More About Trauma, PTSD, and Recovery
Learning to Trust Yourself Again After Trauma
By: Dr. Savannah Walker
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Fawning: The Hidden Cost of Being “Easy Going”
By: Hailey Fitzpatrick
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Is EMDR the right therapy for me?
By: Hailey Fitzpatrick
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Avoidance: The Band-Aid Solution to Long-Term Problems
By: Dr. Jamie Long
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Find the Right Trauma Therapist for You
You do not need to know whether you have PTSD, which type of trauma therapy you need, or which therapist is the right fit before reaching out.
Tell us a little about what you are experiencing and what you hope will change. Our team will help connect you with a therapist whose training, approach, and availability fit your needs.
Trauma therapy is available in person at our Fort Lauderdale office, with online therapy options also available depending on your location and therapist.
Prefer to speak with someone directly? Give us a call or send us a message and someone will be in touch with you asap.
(954) 488-2933
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