Areas of Support

Melissa specializes in trauma recovery with dedicated experience working with religious trauma, dissociative disorders & the challenges of ADHD.

  • Whether your trauma came from a single overwhelming event or from a lifetime of experiences that built up over time, the impact can be deep and long lasting. You might be feeling stuck in survival mode, disconnected from yourself or others or perhaps unable to escape from chronic anxiety, fear or emotional numbness.

    My work is grounded in creating a space that is compassionate and trauma-informed, where you can make sense of what you’ve been through and begin to heal at a pace that feels safe and manageable for you.

    Much of my practice focuses on complex trauma: the kind of trauma that comes from repeated or ongoing experiences that were painful, confusing, or minimized by others. These experiences often happen in relationships or environments that shape how safe you feel in the world and how you see yourself and often leave people feeling misunderstood.

    This can include:

    • Childhood emotional neglect or abuse

    • Betrayal by caregivers, partners or trusted communities

    • Religious or spiritual trauma

    • Growing up in rigid, controlling, or high-demand environments

    • Sexual trauma, especially when it was minimized or invalidated

    • Ongoing experiences of systemic oppression

    • Gaslighting or chronic emotional invalidation or criticism

    • Being made responsible for adult needs as a child

    • Patterns of abandonment or conditional love

    • Experiences of oppression

    I have a particular focus on religious and spiritual trauma, and I understand how deeply these experiences can shape identity, relationships, and self-worth. This kind of harm is often overlooked or misunderstood in therapy spaces, which is why it matters to me to offer care that truly gets it.

  • Supporting those recovering from high-control religions, purity culture, spiritual abuse, or conditional belonging rooted in faith communities. Whether you're questioning long-held beliefs or healing from environments where conformity was expected over authenticity, therapy can be a space to untangle the fear, shame, and confusion these experiences leave behind. I also hold space for those impacted by systemic oppression including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism, medical trauma &the ways these forces shape how you see yourself and move through the world.

  • Dissociative disorders are too often misunderstood as rare or dramatic, when in reality they exist on a spectrum and are closely linked to how the human brain adapts to trauma. When experiences are too overwhelming to process all at once, sometimes the mind separates memory, emotion and identity as a protective strategy. This is actually a beautiful survival response that helped you function when you needed it to feel safe enough to survive.

    Dissociation can show up as brain fog, emotional numbness, feeling detached from your body, internal conflict, memory gaps or sudden shifts in mood and perspective. Many people with dissociation have felt misunderstood or even harmed in past therapy when their experiences weren’t fully recognized. In our work together, therapy is guided by your lived experience and your pace with a focus on listening closely, building stability, strengthening internal cooperation, and helping your system learn it no longer has to do everything alone.

  • Whether you’ve recently been diagnosed or have long sensed that your brain just works differently, I offer a supportive space to better understand and work with your neurodivergence. For many (especially those diagnosed later in life), ADHD, Autism & other forms of neurodivergence have gone unrecognized or been masked by people pleasing, burnout or internalized shame. In therapy, we can explore how these differences have shaped your experiences, challenge outdated narratives about productivity and worth and develop strategies that actually align with how you function best. This work is about self compassion, and embracing who you are in ways that feel sustainable and meet you where you’re at.

  • Gracefully navigating breakups, childbirth & postpartum, post graduation shifts, shifts in mental health experiences, significant losses, early-to-mid career changes and any other life transition you may be experiencing with intention and care

  • If you grew up feeling like your emotional needs weren’t fully seen or understood: you are not alone.

    Many people were raised by caregivers who loved them and were doing their best but still struggled to offer consistent emotional presence or empathy. And this leaves a lasting emotional impact. Even when care and good intentions were there, these gaps can shape how we learn to relate to ourselves and others, often showing up later as self-doubt, people pleasing, guilt, or feeling like our emotions are “too much.”

    This work is centered around gently untangling those early messages, learning to set boundaries without shame and reconnecting with your emotional world with more compassion and trust. Over time it can be deeply relieving to realize that some of the patterns you carry were never flaws in you, but understandable responses to what you needed and did not receive.

    Many people find helpful language for these experiences in the work of psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson, including her book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, which names patterns that often go unseen but are deeply impactful.

  • I support individuals exploring who they are beyond the roles, rules or expectations they were handed. This may include navigating questions around sexuality, gender identity or expression, neurodivergence, spirituality, belief systems, cultural identity or how you choose to show up in the world. Whether you are just beginning to question long held values or deep in the process of redefining what feels true for you, therapy can be a place to sort through the noise and reconnect with your most authentic self.

  • Healing from sexual trauma is not about rushing to “move on”, it’s about gently rebuilding safety, trust, and a sense of connection with yourself. Whether the experience was recent or long ago, happened one time or felt like it would never end, acknowledged or minimized by others, therapy can be a place where your story is held with care and without judgment. I offer trauma-informed support for survivors navigating the complex layers of impact, including body disconnection, shame, self-blame, intimacy challenges, or grief over what was taken. You deserve to feel safe in your own body and empowered in your healing process, and we’ll move at a pace that honors your voice and needs every step of the way.

Approach to Therapy

In our work together, your sessions will be a chance to slow down from the noise and expectations of everyday life, and gently turn inward. I believe that healing begins when we create space for your thoughts, emotions, and bodily experiences to be witnessed with curiosity and care. Therapy with me isn’t about “fixing” you, it’s about helping you reconnect with the parts of yourself that have been pushed aside or hidden in order to survive. I feel deeply honored when clients invite me into the authentic, messy, sacred spaces of their lives.

I view you as the expert of your own experience. My role is to walk alongside you, offering support, reflection, and tools that help illuminate what’s been in the shadows, whether that’s old patterns, protective parts, or stories

Modalities I incorporate include:

  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

  • Internal Family Systems-Informed Parts Work—to explore and integrate the different inner voices and protective parts of you

  • Somatic Therapy—inviting awareness to the body as a guide in healing and processing trauma

  • Narrative Therapy—to help you reclaim and reshape the stories you tell about yourself

This work can be transformative and I’d be honored to walk with you through it.

If you’re curious to learn more or ready to get started, I invite you to contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation. I look forward to connecting with you and supporting your journey.

“if you were born with the weakness to fall

you were born with the strength to rise”

-Rupi Kaur