Trauma Therapy for Women and Teen Girls in California and Colorado
Find healing, reconnect with yourself, and move forward with greater peace.
Trauma can shape how you see yourself, relate to others, and experience the world around you. Whether you've experienced a single distressing event, childhood trauma, relational wounds, or a difficult birth experience, the effects can continue long after the event itself. You may find yourself feeling anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected, stuck in old patterns, or unsure how to move forward.
At Wild Peace Counseling, I provide compassionate, trauma-informed therapy for women and teen girls in California and Colorado. Together, we'll work to understand your experiences, recognize the ways trauma may be affecting your life, and develop tools that help you feel more grounded, connected, and empowered.
You don't have to navigate healing alone. Therapy offers a space where you can feel heard, make sense of your experiences, and move toward a life that feels more aligned with who you are.
Michaela Luck
Hi, I’m Michaela, a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC #23926) providing online therapy for christian women in Los Gatos, San Jose, and across the Bay Area. I’m also licensed as a Professional Counselor in Colorado.
For over ten years, I’ve worked with women who are capable, caring, and quietly exhausted: the ones everyone else leans on, who rarely get a turn to be supported. My approach is warm and direct. You’ll find a space where you can slow down and be heard, along with practical tools you can use between sessions.
I draw on Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Internal Family Systems-informed work, somatic therapy, and CBT to help with anxiety, trauma, postpartum struggles, and life transitions. If your faith matters to you, I’m glad to include it in our work. If it doesn’t, that’s completely fine too.
You don’t have to have it all together to start. I offer a free 15-minute consultation so we can see if we’re a good fit.
What Is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma therapy is a therapeutic approach that helps you process distressing experiences and understand how they may influence your thoughts, emotions, relationships, and nervous system. Trauma can result from a single event or develop over time through repeated experiences, particularly when you haven't had the support or safety you needed.
Trauma doesn't look the same for everyone. You may recognize its effects immediately, or you may find yourself struggling without fully understanding why.
Trauma therapy can help you explore these experiences at a pace that feels manageable, develop a greater understanding of your responses, and build new ways of relating to yourself and others.
Signs You May Benefit From Trauma Therapy Los Gatos, CA
Trauma can affect many areas of life, including emotional well-being, physical sensations, relationships, and self-perception.
You may benefit from trauma therapy if you experience:
Anxiety, hypervigilance, or feeling constantly on edge
Difficulty trusting others or feeling safe in relationships
People-pleasing, perfectionism, or difficulty setting boundaries
Shame, self-blame, or persistent feelings of not being enough
Emotional overwhelm, irritability, or difficulty regulating emotions
Feeling disconnected from your body, emotions, or sense of self
Repetitive relationship patterns that are difficult to change
Distressing memories, nightmares, or reminders of past experiences
Difficulty adjusting after a major life transition or traumatic event
You don't need to have a formal PTSD diagnosis to benefit from trauma-informed counseling. If past experiences continue to affect your present life, therapy can help you explore those connections.
Types of Trauma I Help With
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Early experiences can influence how you understand yourself, navigate relationships, and respond to stress. If you grew up feeling unseen, unsafe, criticized, or responsible for other people's emotions, you may have developed coping strategies that once helped you but now leave you feeling overwhelmed or disconnected.
Therapy can help you understand these patterns with compassion, strengthen your sense of self, and develop healthier ways of relating to others.
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Experiences of betrayal, emotional neglect, inconsistent caregiving, or unhealthy relationships can make it difficult to trust, feel secure, or communicate your needs. You may find yourself withdrawing, becoming anxious in relationships, or struggling to establish boundaries.
Together, we'll explore how your relational experiences influence your current patterns and work toward greater emotional safety, self-trust, and healthier connections.
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Pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period can bring unexpected and sometimes traumatic experiences. A birth that felt frightening, overwhelming, disempowering, or different from what you expected can have lasting emotional effects.
You may experience distressing memories, anxiety about future pregnancies, grief, or difficulty processing your birth experience. Trauma-informed therapy can offer space to process what happened, honor your experience, and reconnect with yourself during the transition into motherhood.
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Significant transitions can bring old wounds to the surface. Becoming a parent, navigating relationship changes, experiencing loss, or entering a new stage of life may leave you feeling unsettled or unsure of yourself.
Therapy can help you understand these responses, make room for complicated emotions, and develop tools to navigate change with greater confidence and self-compassion.
My Approach to Trauma Therapy
At Wild Peace Counseling, I believe healing happens through curiosity, compassion, and a therapeutic relationship where you feel respected and understood. You are more than what you've experienced, and your responses often make sense in the context of what you've been through.
My approach is individualized to your needs, goals, and readiness. Rather than pushing you to revisit painful experiences before you're ready, we can begin by building coping skills, identifying patterns, and strengthening your sense of safety and stability.
Depending on your needs, our work may incorporate:
Somatic Therapy: Explore how stress and past experiences show up in your body, increase awareness of physical and emotional responses, and develop grounding and regulation skills.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART): A structured therapeutic approach that uses guided techniques, including eye movements, to help people work with distressing memories and associated emotional responses.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Identify unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs and develop more supportive ways of understanding yourself and responding to challenges.
Internal Family Systems-Informed Therapy (IFS): Explore different parts of yourself with curiosity and compassion, including protective responses and patterns that developed to help you cope.
Our work may also include psychoeducation, emotional regulation, healthy boundaries, communication skills, and practical strategies you can use outside of sessions.
What to Expect
Beginning therapy can feel vulnerable, especially if you've spent a long time managing difficult experiences on your own. You don't need to have everything figured out before your first session.
In our work together, we may:
Build safety and trust. Establish a supportive therapeutic relationship and identify what helps you feel comfortable and grounded.
Understand your experiences. Explore how past experiences may influence your current emotions, beliefs, relationships, and responses to stress.
Develop coping tools. Strengthen emotional regulation, grounding, self-awareness, and boundary-setting skills.
Process experiences when appropriate. Work with distressing memories and patterns at a pace that respects your needs and readiness.
Build a path forward. Practice new ways of responding to challenges, relating to yourself, and creating relationships that support your well-being.
Healing isn't always linear, and there is no single timeline for trauma recovery. We'll work collaboratively toward goals that are meaningful to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. You don't need a PTSD diagnosis to explore how distressing experiences affect your life. Therapy can help with trauma-related concerns, relational patterns, emotional overwhelm, and other difficulties connected to past experiences.
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Yes. All sessions are by secure video, serving women in Los Gatos, San Jose, Campbell, Cupertino, Saratoga, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Willow Glen, and throughout California.
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You are not required to share every detail of a painful experience. Therapy should respect your boundaries and readiness. We can begin with your current concerns, build coping skills, and determine together whether and how to approach difficult memories.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy is helpful and evidence based, and you can share as much or as little as you’d like and it is still effective.
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Yes. Past experiences can influence trust, communication, boundaries, emotional responses, and attachment patterns. Therapy can help you recognize these connections and develop healthier ways of relating to yourself and others.
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Not in California, I'm private pay. See my Fees page for details.
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Yes. Therapy can provide space to process a distressing birth experience, explore ongoing emotional responses, and address concerns related to pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum adjustment.
