Trauma & PTSD
Support for the lasting effects of childhood trauma, sexual abuse and assault, domestic violence, attachment wounds, and other overwhelming experiences.
Trauma therapy · Sierra Madre + online in CA & NY
Healing happens
in connection.
Trauma can leave you feeling disconnected from your emotions, your relationships, and even yourself. Therapy can offer a different experience: a place to feel safe enough to understand what you carry, reconnect with your feelings, and move toward a life with freedom and authenticity.
James Higa, LCSW, MPH15 years in practiceAEDP · Relational · SomaticIn person + telehealth
When old ways of coping stop working
You may have learned to survive by disconnecting.
The ways you adapted to painful or unsafe experiences may once have protected you. Later, those same patterns can show up as anxiety, shame, emotional numbing, self-criticism, difficulty trusting, people-pleasing, anger, or feeling stuck in relationships.
My work is not only about understanding why these patterns developed. Together, we create enough safety to experience emotions differently.
Areas of focus
Therapy for trauma, relationships, and emotional growth.
Relationships & attachment
Explore patterns such as fear of conflict, defensiveness, people-pleasing, emotional distancing, abandonment fears, and difficulty expressing needs.
Men & emotional growth
A space to develop a fuller relationship with emotion, vulnerability, accountability, intimacy, identity, and connection without reducing therapy to advice or symptom management.
How I work
Experiential therapy, not just talking about feelings.
My approach is rooted in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), attachment-based and relational therapy, and somatic work. We pay attention not only to the story of what happened, but also to what is happening emotionally and physically in the present moment.
That may mean slowing down, noticing a feeling in your body, understanding a protective part of yourself, or experiencing care and connection differently than you could in the past.
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”
— bell hooks
Begin with connection
See whether working together feels like a fit.
I provide in-person psychotherapy in Sierra Madre and telehealth for clients located in California and New York.