Heart-Centered
Trauma Therapy
Grounded in Neuroscience
Dedicated to helping you
leave the past behind
Is trauma and anxiety therapy right for you?
Do you feel as though something is holding you back from having the life you hoped for?
Maybe you have experienced trauma and find that memories of it plague you, or you find yourself thrown off balance by what seems like small events.
Perhaps you have had a lot of therapy and have a better understanding of why you feel bad, but you still feel bad.
You are not alone.
Although it may feel like everyone else has it all figured out, many successful people struggle with negative thoughts, self-criticism, shame, and anxiety. Many silently cope after traumatic experiences have shaken their very sense of self, while others grapple with attachment wounds that make relationships feel complicated and trust elusive.
How do we free ourselves from our hurt, anger, and shame from the past and our fear for the future to find some peace and clarity within? How can we work skillfully within our constantly reactive emotional landscape? How do we protect our hearts AND open our hearts?
There's no need to white-knuckle it when there is real help to be had.
New hope for healing
Trauma & PTSD can be hard to recognize
When you have an obvious trauma like a car accident or assault, it may be clear why you're struggling. But other experiences can cause trauma too.
If your family was dysfunctional or chronically stressed, it can be hard to recognize the impact because what happened was "normal" in your home. You have symptoms but can't seem to connect them to what happened so long ago.
Have you found that you…
Regret past choices and have disturbing memories you can't shake?
Worry constantly about the future?
Have trouble sleeping or staying asleep?
Struggle with shame and harsh self-judgment?
Feel like you don’t get the relief you need from talk therapy alone?
Have difficulty trusting others or getting close in relationships?
Feel anxious or on edge much of the time?
Experience physical symptoms that doctors can't fully explain?
Therapy becomes a laboratory for having an embodied experience of what a healthy relationship and healthy boundaries feel like.
You get to try out new ways of being with another person skilled in relationships and establish a different kind of connection than you might be used to.
A dynamic 360° approach to trauma repair
We offer a fresh and dynamic approach to trauma healing that goes far beyond traditional talk therapy. Our comprehensive 360° approach integrates heart, mind, and body—a whole-person healing path that forms the foundation of our heart-centered practice grounded in cutting-edge neuroscience.
While traditional talk therapy focuses on understanding what happened to you and why you feel the way you do, hoping that cognitive insight will change how you feel, this linear approach has limitations. It doesn't account for the uniqueness of each individual's lived experience and the multi-layered factors that have brought them to this point in time.
Our trauma therapy in Los Angeles addresses the whole person—not just your thoughts and not just your emotions, but how trauma lives in your nervous system and affects your daily life.
Our comprehensive therapeutic modalities
Relational Therapy
Everything we do is grounded in relational therapy, because all research points to the healing relationship between therapist and client as being the number one factor in positive outcomes. We are warm, conversational, direct, and non-pathologizing, and we take care to balance your struggles with your strengths.
EMDR Therapy & Somatic Experiencing
Many people with complicated histories have nervous systems deeply patterned toward anxiety, hypervigilance, and dysregulation. They need support expanding their capacity for rest, relaxation, and ease.
Trauma and anxiety are held in the body and need to be released from the body. Fortunately, your brain and your body have a natural ability to heal.
We use two powerful forms of body-based trauma therapies: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and Somatic Experiencing.
These evidence-based approaches complement and enhance each other, addressing not just your traumatic experiences and memories, but how they are stored in your body and the meaning you've made from them.
Mindfulness Therapy
We incorporate Mindfulness Therapy to help you gain skillfulness with the bombardment of 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts we have each day—the majority of them repetitious and negative. This practice helps you shift your attention from regrets of the past and worries about the future, enabling you to enjoy a happier, more meaningful life.
Attachment Repair Therapy
We use Attachment Repair Therapy because so much of our trauma springs from or is impacted by a lack of support and understanding in our earliest relationships. Attachment is the invisible thread that weaves through every relationship in your life. When this foundation is solid, you move through the world with a basic sense of safety and trust. When it's shaky, everything feels more complicated.
Consider these questions that often arise from attachment experiences:
Do you trust yourself to make good choices?
How close do you get to others—or how much distance do you keep?
When you're triggered, do you people-please, withdraw, pick fights, or freeze?
Do you know what you need, and can you ask for it?
Can you say both "no" and "yes" authentically?
The journey toward self-acceptance.
Much of our work involves learning to have your adult self care for your younger parts with the same kindness your therapist shows them. You practice what we call "pendulating"—opening a little to difficult feelings or sensations, then moving back to safety and support, gradually building your capacity to be with your full experience without being overwhelmed by it.
This is ultimately a journey toward self-acceptance, self-nurturance, and self-regulation. You learn to recognize when those overwhelming feelings from the past are visiting in the present, understanding that while they feel immediate and threatening, they're actually echoes of experiences that are over.
Rather than continually feeling like you're in the danger zone, you can tap into your innate strength and resilience. It's possible to heal old wounds, develop self-acceptance, and cultivate the openness and confidence needed to flourish in your relationships and your life.
Why choose Cutting Edge Counseling for trauma therapy in Los Angeles?
Over Three Decades of Expertise: We've been at the cutting edge of trauma research and treatment for over 35 years, understanding both personally and professionally how fragmenting and frightening trauma can be.
Comprehensive Approach: Our 360° method addresses trauma through multiple therapeutic modalities, all based in neuroscience, ensuring we meet you wherever you are in your healing journey.
Somatic Specialization: We're trained to work with the body's wisdom, recognizing that trauma lives in the nervous system and requires body-based healing approaches like EMDR therapy and Somatic Experiencing.
Attachment-Based: We understand that healing happens through relationship and create the safe, attuned therapeutic bond necessary for deep healing.
Heart-Centered Practice: We provide steady, compassionate support throughout your healing journey, combining professional expertise with genuine care.
You Can Find Healing
For Your Heart, Mind And Body
We have been helping people just like you heal for over 35 years.
We have been helping people just like you heal for over 35 years. At Cutting Edge Counseling, we specialize in healing trauma using the most effective, evidence-based approaches available: EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Mindfulness Therapy, and Attachment Repair Therapy.
We offer both in-person trauma therapy in Los Angeles and secure online sessions to California residents. Our offices are conveniently located in Mar Vista, just west of Culver City and east of Venice, easily accessible from Santa Monica, Westwood, and Beverly Hills.
You no longer need to navigate painful feelings or make sense of trauma on your own. We want to offer hope for relief based on our decades of experience helping people with trauma and anxiety, and because we too have walked this path from dysregulation to wellness.
Ready to begin your healing journey?
We welcome your call. You can ask us questions, get a better sense of who we are and how we work, and determine whether we might be a good fit for you.
If you're seeking trauma therapy, PTSD treatment, attachment repair, or somatic therapy in Los Angeles, we invite you to reach out for a complimentary 15-minute consultation.
Call Stephanie at 310-339-5851 or Lee Ann at 310-980-8988.
Take the first step toward the life you've been hoping for. Healing is possible, and you don't have to do it alone.