FOUR OFFICES ACROSS PENNSYLVANIA · TELEHEALTH STATEWIDE

Trauma Therapy in Pennsylvania

Something happened, and some part of how you respond to the world changed after it. The event is over. The way you learned to get through it may still be running.

Trauma therapy at CPA Counseling helps adults and adolescents whose lives are still being shaped by something that happened — reactions that outsize the moment, situations quietly avoided, a sense of distance from yourself or the people close to you. The work is less about what happened then than about what it’s still doing now. In person at four Pennsylvania offices or by secure telehealth statewide.

TrUM Therpay can make it feel safe to be living a normal life
No program commitments
UPMC · Aetna · Highmark · Cigna
All ages treated
Telehealth available statewide
Serving Clients since 2015

WHEN THE PAST IS STILL HERE

The event is over. The response isn’t

People usually recognize themselves in one of these before they ever use the word trauma. None of them is a diagnosis, and none of them requires knowing what caused it.

Your reaction is bigger than the moment

A tone of voice, a sound, someone standing too close. The response arrives fully formed and out of proportion, and you know that while it is happening, which does nothing to slow it down.

You’ve been steering around things

A route you don’t take, a conversation you keep deferring, a type of person you’ve stopped being around. Each avoidance was reasonable on its own. Together they’ve made the map of your life smaller.

You don’t feel like yourself

Flatter than you used to be, or further away — from people, from things you cared about, sometimes from your own reactions as they happen. You can usually date roughly when it started.

UNDERSTANDING TRAUMA

It is defined by the effect — not by how bad it looks

Trauma is not a ranking of events. What makes an experience traumatic is that it overwhelmed your capacity to cope at the time, and left changes behind — in how you feel, what you expect, how your body responds, how close you let people get. Two people can go through the same thing and only one of them carries it forward. That difference is clinical information, not a measure of anyone’s strength.

“The question isn’t whether it was bad enough. It’s whether it’s still running your life.”

Single events and long stretches

Some trauma comes from one identifiable moment — a crash, an assault, a death, a night in a hospital. Some comes from conditions that lasted: a childhood spent reading a room before entering it, a relationship that required constant management, an environment that was never quite safe. The second kind is harder to name, because there is no single event to point at, and it is no less consequential.

Trauma is not the same as PTSD

PTSD is a specific diagnosis with specific criteria, and it requires proper assessment rather than a symptom list found online. Plenty of people carry lasting effects from something without meeting those criteria — and they are not less entitled to treatment for it. The diagnosis matters for planning the work. It is not the threshold for deserving it.

WHERE IT COMES FROM

Experiences that can leave a mark

Accidents and sudden events

A crash, a fall, a fire — something that took seconds and changed afterward.

Violence, abuse, or assault

Harm done by another person, including sexual assault, at any age.

Childhood experiences

Neglect, instability, or a home that required constant vigilance.

Illness and medical experiences

A diagnosis, a procedure, an ICU stay, a long stretch of not knowing.

Loss

A death that was sudden, violent, or that you witnessed.

Repeated exposure

Work or circumstances that put distressing events in front of you regularly.

HOW IT SHOWS UP

What it looks like from the inside

Rarely as a memory. Far more often as something in the present you would not immediately connect to anything.

Permanently on guard

Scanning exits, reading faces, bracing for something. It doesn’t switch off in safe rooms, and it costs sleep, patience, and concentration you’d rather spend elsewhere.

Avoiding, or going flat

Steering around reminders, or the opposite — feeling very little when you should feel something. Both are the same system turning the volume down.

It arrives uninvited

Images, sensations, or the whole thing again in a dream. Not remembering so much as being returned there, usually with no warning and no obvious trigger.

At a distance from people

Close relationships feel like they’re happening through glass. Trust is harder than it was, and there’s often guilt or shame underneath that nobody has asked about.

WHAT THE WORK IS

You will not be made to relive it

The most common fear about trauma therapy is being walked through the worst thing that ever happened to you in session three. That is not how competent trauma treatment works.

1

What’s happening now

The first sessions are about the present: what you’re experiencing, how it’s affecting work, sleep, and the people around you, what you’ve tried, and what you want different. Your history matters and will come up. It is not the opening demand.

2

Steadier ground first

Before processing anything, most people need reliable ways to manage distress and come back down. Recognizing what sets you off and what the response actually is. This isn’t a holding pattern — it’s what makes the next part survivable.

3

Working the memory itself

When you’re ready, processing the experience directly — with structure, and at a pace built with you. The target is the charge the memory still carries and the beliefs that came with it, not a complete retelling.

HOW IT GETS TREATED

Different people need different approaches

There is no single best trauma therapy. What fits depends on what happened, what you are experiencing now, and what you are ready for — and that is a clinical judgment, made with you.

EMDR

A structured approach to processing distressing memories so they lose their present-day charge. It requires relatively little talking about detail, which is part of why it suits people who cannot face a full retelling. Several CPA therapists are EMDR trained.

Trauma-focused CBT and CPT

Structured work on the beliefs that formed around what happened — about fault, safety, and what you are capable of. Pairs skills for managing distress with careful, paced processing. Well established for both adults and adolescents.

Other approaches, where they fit

Some people need relational or parts-based work, some need the family involved, some need psychiatric input alongside therapy. We’ll tell you plainly if what you need isn’t something we provide, and help you find it.

WHY IT PERSISTS

Survival responses outlast the danger

Everything you are doing now made sense once. Watching the room, keeping people at a distance, going quiet rather than escalating, reacting before thinking — these were adaptations, and at the time they were correct. They worked.

The difficulty is that they do not come with an expiry date. The circumstances change and the responses stay, firing in rooms where nothing is wrong, applied to people who have given no reason for them. That is not irrationality. It is a system that learned something under pressure and has had no reason to update.

Trauma therapy is not about being told those responses are unreasonable. It is about seeing them as they happen and having more than one option available — which is a different goal than making the memory disappear, and a more achievable one.

“I kept apologizing for reacting. Nobody had told me the reaction was the point.”

Pace is a clinical decision

Avoiding the material indefinitely tends to preserve the symptoms. Pushing into it before someone is steady enough can set the work back. Neither extreme is trauma-informed, whatever that phrase has come to mean. Your therapist builds the sequence with you and will say when they think you are ready and when they think you are not.

Trauma therapy at CPA

We assess what happened and what is happening now, which are separate questions. Trauma rarely arrives alone — anxiety, depression, substance use, sleep problems, and relationship difficulty frequently come with it, and we treat the actual picture rather than assuming everything traces back to one cause. The approach is matched to the person, and so is the therapist.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT TRAUMA THERAPY

Eight things to know before you begin

What this page comes down to, if you read nothing else.

It doesn’t look the same in everyone

Two people can go through the same event and respond completely differently. What matters clinically is the effect it had on you — not whether anyone thinks it should have.

Trauma and PTSD aren’t the same thing

You can carry lasting effects without meeting criteria for PTSD. And PTSD is a specific diagnosis that deserves proper assessment, not a symptom list found online.

Your reactions made sense once

Vigilance, avoidance, going numb — these were adaptations to real circumstances. The question is whether they are still earning their keep now.

You don’t have to tell everything at once

Trauma therapy is not an interrogation and should not open with a detailed retelling of the worst thing that happened to you.

Avoidance keeps it powerful

The counterweight to the point above. Steering around reminders lowers distress today while letting the fear keep setting the boundaries of your life.

Coping skills are not the whole treatment

Managing distress matters and is not the destination. Effective treatment also works on the memories, the beliefs, the avoidance, and what they have done to your relationships.

There isn’t one right approach

Several evidence-based approaches work. Which one suits you depends on your experience, your current symptoms, and what you are ready for.

It starts with now, not then

The opening task isn’t telling the whole story. It’s understanding what you’re living with today, how it’s affecting you, and whether trauma is part of it.

MEET THE TEAM

The therapists behind your care

The therapists below do trauma work across our four Pennsylvania offices and by telehealth statewide.

  • allison bare

    Allison Bare

    LSW · Gottman-Trained

    Locations: Altoona · Telehealth

    Skills: Gottman Method, IFS, Somatic Techniques

    Services: Marriage Counseling, ADHD, Autism

    Therapy should reflect the fact that no two people experience the world in exactly the same way.

    Allison provides Gottman-trained couples therapy and works with individuals ages 10 and up — supporting them through ADHD, autism, anxiety, addiction, grief, and life transitions.

  • Amber Kottner

    Amber Kottner

    MA, LPC

    Locations: South Hills · Telehealth

    Skills: CBT, Solution-Focused, Person-Centered

    Services: Anxiety, Children & Adolescents, Grief & Loss

    I view therapy as a special partnership.

    With more than ten years in private practice, Amber brings a warm, open, and supportive presence — an eclectic, tailored approach that helps children, teens, and adults work through anxiety, depression, grief, and life’s difficult times.

  • Ashley Spahn

    Ashley Spahn

    MSW, LCSW

    Locations: South Hills · Telehealth

    Skills: EMDR, ERP, CBT

    Services: PTSD, OCD, Anxiety

    The therapeutic relationship is a partnership.

    With a warm, empathetic, partnership-based approach, Ashley helps adults work through anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, and life transitions — and celebrate their growth along the way.

CONDITION GUIDE

Trauma guides from our therapists

  • traumna and healing

    Trauma

    Rebuilding Trust After Emotional Abuse

    Emotional abuse leaves invisible wounds — eroding your confidence and your ability to trust yourself and others. Healing isn’t just leaving the relationship; it’s rebuilding trust from the inside out. Christina Binder, LSW, a trauma-certified therapist in Robinson, helps survivors rebuild self-trust and move forward, in person or by telehealth across Pennsylvania.

  • Chronic Fear

    Trauma

    Chronic Fear & Mental Health

    Fear is a healthy survival signal — but when it never switches off, chronic fight-or-flight wears on both mind and body, often hardening into anxiety, exhaustion, and a shrinking world. Claire Friedlander, Graduate Social Work Intern helps clients across Pittsburgh’s South Hills calm chronic fear and anxiety with practical tools, in person or by telehealth across Pennsylvania.

  • Surviving an Affair

    Trauma

    6 Steps to Surviving an Affair

    Can a relationship survive an affair? 94% of relationship counselors believe it can. Recovery takes ending the affair, radical honesty, space for the hurt, and rebuilding connection — usually with support. Autumn Staszak, LPC, a Gottman-trained couples therapist in Pittsburgh’s South Hills, helps couples heal after infidelity, in person or by telehealth across Pennsylvania.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Questions about Trauma Therapy

Straightforward answers to what people ask most often before their first session.

Probably, though not always — and not on day one. Early sessions focus on what you’re experiencing now and on building reliable ways to manage distress. Processing the experience directly comes when you and your therapist agree you’re ready, and some approaches focus on how you’re functioning now without requiring you to recount it. Even then the goal is reducing the charge the memory carries — not producing a complete narrative for anyone’s benefit.

That’s common and it isn’t an obstacle. Memory around overwhelming events is frequently fragmented, out of order, or partly missing, and that is a recognized feature rather than a sign you’re unreliable. Treatment works with what you do have. Recovering more detail is not the aim, and therapy is not an excavation.

If it’s still affecting how you live, it counts. People routinely minimize what happened to them — because someone else had it worse, because they were an adult, because they weren’t physically hurt. None of that determines the clinical effect. The useful question isn’t how bad it was. It’s what it’s still doing.

It depends on what happened and what you’re carrying. A single event with otherwise stable functioning often responds in a few months. Experiences that ran for years, or that happened in childhood, usually take longer. Your therapist should be able to give you a realistic range after the first few sessions rather than an open-ended commitment.

EMDR is a structured method for processing distressing memories so they stop carrying the same present-day charge. It involves guided attention while you hold the memory in mind, and it requires relatively little talking about detail — which is why it suits people who can’t face a full retelling. It works well for many and isn’t the right fit for everyone. Several CPA therapists are trained in it.

The aim isn’t erasing it or never feeling anything about it again. What changes is how much room it takes up — reactions that stop running the day, places you can go again, relationships that aren’t held at arm’s length. Most people describe it as the thing moving from the foreground to the background rather than disappearing.

Yes, including EMDR, which adapts well to video. For many people being in their own space makes difficult material easier to approach. Some situations are better in person, and your therapist will say so. Many clients do both depending on what a given session is for.

READY TO START?

You don’t have to be ready to tell it

What happened does not fade on its own, and the arrangements you built to live around it tend to harden instead of loosen — one more place avoided, one more person held at distance, until the smaller life starts to look like the only one available. The first conversation is about what you are living with now. Nothing else is required of you yet.