The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

People often seek therapy when distress, coping patterns, or relationships have begun to feel harder to carry on their own. You may be overwhelmed by anxiety, struggling with depression, carrying the effects of trauma, or noticing that ways of coping that once helped are no longer working.

We believe symptoms are best understood in context. Therapy is not only about reducing distress. It is also an opportunity to understand what has shaped you, approach longstanding patterns with greater compassion, strengthen your capacity to respond differently, and create more room for safety, connection, and choice.

Our work is collaborative and individualized. We consider your history, current circumstances, strengths, relationships, and the ways your mind and body have learned to protect you as we determine what may be most helpful.

Trauma can affect more than how we remember what happened. It can influence how safe we feel, how we understand ourselves, what we expect from other people, and how we respond when something in the present connects with experiences from the past—even when that connection is not immediately obvious.

Traumatic experiences can take many forms. Some occur as a single overwhelming event. Others happen repeatedly, over long periods of time, or within relationships in which safety, care, trust, or the ability to leave were limited.

People respond differently to traumatic experiences. The nature of what happened matters, but it does not by itself determine a diagnosis or define how you should have been affected.

PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can develop after exposure to traumatic experiences. It may involve intrusive memories, nightmares or flashbacks; avoiding reminders of what happened; changes in mood, beliefs, or connection with others; and an ongoing sense of threat that may show up as hypervigilance, irritability, difficulty sleeping or concentrating, or being easily startled.

For some people, the effects of trauma feel clearly connected to a particular experience. For others, they become woven into many parts of daily life.

Complex PTSD

Complex PTSD, or CPTSD, describes a trauma response that includes the core features of PTSD along with broader and persistent difficulties involving emotion regulation, a person's sense of self, and relationships.

People affected by complex trauma may recognize experiences such as intense emotions or emotional shutdown, persistent shame or self-doubt, difficulty trusting themselves, a painful sense of being flawed or unworthy, difficulty receiving care, or wanting connection while also feeling unsafe within it.

These patterns are not character flaws. Many developed in circumstances that required adaptation: finding ways to protect yourself, preserve important relationships, manage overwhelming experiences, or simply keep going.

CPTSD is recognized as a distinct diagnosis in the ICD-11. The DSM-5-TR, which is commonly used in the United States, does not list CPTSD as a separate diagnosis, although PTSD and other clinical formulations can capture many overlapping experiences.

Relational Trauma & Attachment

Some of the most enduring effects of trauma can develop within relationships.

Experiences of care, protection, separation, inconsistency, emotional neglect, criticism, fear, betrayal, or loss can influence what we come to expect from closeness and how we respond when relationships feel uncertain.

Later in life, this may show up as difficulty trusting, fear of abandonment or rejection, self-silencing, over-accommodating others, difficulty identifying or expressing needs, withdrawing when vulnerable, or feeling responsible for keeping a relationship steady.

Attachment is not a label for who you are, and attachment patterns are not fixed. Exploring them can help us understand what you learned about safety, dependence, closeness, and repair without reducing you to an attachment “style” or assuming that every present-day difficulty began in childhood.

Healing From Trauma

Trauma treatment is not one-size-fits-all. Effective therapy begins with understanding your history, current symptoms, strengths, and what you need in order to participate in the work with enough safety and support.

Depending on your needs, treatment may include increasing emotional regulation and steadiness, strengthening boundaries and self-trust, understanding protective patterns, addressing trauma-related beliefs, and processing traumatic memories so that past experiences have less influence over how you must respond in the present.

At Cordillera Counseling Services, our trauma work integrates evidence-informed treatment, including EMDR and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, with relational, attachment-informed, and cognitive approaches. Tahmineh Shadkhoo is EMDR Certified and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level I trained. Treatment is collaborative and paced with attention to your needs, readiness, and capacity.

Trauma recovery does not ask you to erase your history. The work is to widen what becomes possible now: greater presence, stronger self-trust, more compassionate self-understanding, safer connection with others, and more freedom to respond from the life you are living today rather than primarily from what you once had to survive.

Anxiety is part of being human. It helps us anticipate problems, respond to danger, and prepare for situations that matter to us. But when anxiety becomes persistent, overwhelming, or begins to narrow what feels possible, it can interfere with work, relationships, rest, decision-making, and daily life.

Anxiety can show up in many ways: constant worry or overthinking, difficulty tolerating uncertainty, a sense that something bad is about to happen, irritability, physical tension, difficulty sleeping or concentrating, panic, avoidance, or feeling unable to settle even when part of you knows there is no immediate danger.

Sometimes anxiety develops in response to current stress. Sometimes it has been present for as long as you can remember. It can also overlap with trauma, depression, neurodivergence, relationship difficulties, health concerns, or significant life transitions. Understanding what is contributing to your anxiety matters because treatment should fit the person rather than simply the label.

Therapy can help you recognize patterns that maintain anxiety, develop practical ways to respond to distress, reduce avoidance, build greater tolerance for uncertainty, and approach difficult situations with more flexibility.

The aim is not a life without anxiety. It is greater freedom to decide what you want to do even when worry, fear, or uncertainty are present.

You do not need to identify as having trauma or an attachment problem to come to therapy because relationships feel difficult.

Relationships can become painful or confusing for many reasons. You may find yourself repeatedly giving more than you receive, struggling to express your needs, feeling responsible for other people's emotions, having difficulty setting limits, withdrawing when conflict occurs, or becoming overwhelmed by uncertainty in important relationships.

You may also know what you want intellectually while finding that something very different happens emotionally when closeness, conflict, rejection, or vulnerability enters the picture.

Therapy can provide space to understand these patterns without reducing them to a label. Together, we may explore what you have learned about closeness, responsibility, conflict, trust, and boundaries; what happens inside you when relationships become difficult; and which responses still reflect what you need today versus strategies that developed in a different context.

Healthy relationships do not require complete independence or the absence of vulnerability. They make room for mutual care, difference, boundaries, accountability, and repair.

Our work can help you develop greater clarity about when to move closer, when to set a limit, what can be repaired, what may need to be accepted or released, and how to remain connected to yourself while being connected to other people.

Depression is more than having a difficult day or feeling sad. It can change how you experience yourself, other people, daily responsibilities, and activities that once brought interest, pleasure, or meaning.

For some people, depression feels like sadness or hopelessness. For others, it may feel more like emptiness, numbness, irritability, exhaustion, disconnection, or a growing sense that very little matters. You may find yourself withdrawing, struggling to get started, sleeping too much or too little, having difficulty concentrating or making decisions, losing interest in things you once enjoyed, or becoming increasingly critical of yourself.

Depression does not have one single cause. Biological vulnerability, life experiences, relationships, stress, loss, trauma, physical health, and other factors can interact differently from one person to another.

Therapy can help us understand what is contributing to the depression rather than treating the symptom list as the whole story. The work may include identifying patterns that deepen withdrawal or hopelessness, reconnecting with meaningful activity and relationships, addressing painful beliefs or experiences, strengthening coping, and creating manageable opportunities for movement where life has begun to feel stuck.

You do not need to arrive already believing that things will improve. Sometimes the first task is simply making enough room to discover what might be different.