Relational Trauma Therapy
Not all trauma comes from a single event. A lot of it accumulates quietly in relationships, in what was never said, never given, never safe enough to ask for. Relational trauma is the kind that lives in the body and shows up in every close connection you try to have.
What relational trauma is
It's not always abuse in the way most people picture it. It can be chronic emotional unavailability from a parent. Unpredictability that kept you constantly bracing. Love that felt like a transaction. Being seen as an extension of someone else's needs rather than a person with your own. These experiences don't produce a single memory to point to. They produce a way of being in the world.
How it shows up now
Hypervigilance in relationships. Difficulty trusting that people will stay. A deep, quiet sense of not being enough, or of being too much. Patterns of pushing people away before they can leave, or holding on past the point that's good for you. The body holding tension it doesn't know how to release. These aren't personality traits. They're adaptations.
How we work with it
Trauma-informed, attachment-focused therapy creates the kind of consistent, safe relational experience the nervous system never got to have. We work slowly, with attention to what's happening in the body as much as what's being said. The goal isn't to re-live the past. It's to build enough new experience that the old fear stops running the show.
Therapists who work with relational trauma
If this page sounds like what you are carrying, the next step is finding the clinician whose lens and style fit the work.
Julia Ayriyan, LMHC
Julia works gently with the nervous system impact of relational trauma, including what the body learned before words were available.
- Somatic
- Trauma
- Parts work
Ayala Feder, MSW
Ayala helps clients understand how early relational wounds still shape trust, closeness, and self-protection now.
- Relational trauma
- Psychodynamic
- EFIT
Bassy Schwartz, LMFT
Bassy works through an attachment and trauma lens, helping clients trace what was handed down and build something different.
- Attachment
- Trauma
- Somatic
Relational wounds heal in relationship. That's exactly what this work is.
Reach out for a free 15-minute consultation, or send us a message below and we’ll match you with the right therapist.