Trauma-Informed Therapy for Healthcare Workers
Healthcare work asks a great deal of you; your attention, your steadiness, quick thinking, high-stakes decision making, your compassion. And often in the presence of pain, urgency, loss, and moral complexity. Trauma‑informed therapy for healthcare workers is a place to share the stress, burdens, and trauma you have taken on as you have cared for others. It’s a place where you will be encouraged to process through what you have experienced and the impact it has had on you.
This page is written for physicians, nurses, EMTs, paramedics, therapists, veterinarians, techs, aides, administrators, and all who work within healthcare systems—especially those who have learned to keep going even when the cost has been high.
Burn Out or Cumulative trauma?
Many healthcare workers describe burnout, but what they are often experiencing goes deeper. What is really going on is your nervous system’s response to cumulative trauma. What you may be experiencing is:
- Chronic stress and nervous system overload
- Secondary or vicarious trauma from repeated exposure to suffering, pain, and loss
- Moral injury: a deep psychological, emotional, and spiritual wound that occurs when someone is exposed to, or participates in, situations that violate their deeply held moral values or sense of what is right
- Grief and cumulative loss that had no time or place to be processed or felt
- Hypervigilance, emotional numbing, and/or deep exhaustion
These are not signs of weakness. Trauma‑informed therapy recognizes that these responses are adaptive, not pathological. They are understandable responses to prolonged responsibility, chronic intense situations, and care under pressure. They make sense in the context of what you’ve lived through. However, adaptive as it might be, it has not left you living your best life.
Common Experiences Healthcare Workers Bring to Therapy
You might recognize yourself in some of the following:
- Feeling like your nervous system never really turns off
- Replaying clinical moments, conversations, or outcomes
- Trouble sleeping
- Intrusive memories
- Emotional detachment, cynicism, or compassion fatigue
- Anxiety, irritability, or sudden waves of sadness that feel hard to explain
- Guilt for not doing more or wanting distance from work
- A loss of meaning, purpose or identity Trauma‑informed care does not ask you to relive everything or explain why it was hard.
In trauma‑informed therapy, there is no expectation to tell everything or go faster than feels safe. We listen for what your system is ready to share and honor your pacing every step of the way.
What Is Trauma‑Informed Therapy?
Trauma‑informed therapy is grounded in an understanding of how trauma and chronic stress affect the brain, body, relationships, and sense of self. Rather than asking “What’s wrong with you?” we ask, “What has happened to you—and how did you survive?”
Core principles include:
- Safety (emotional, relational, and physiological)
- Choice and collaboration
- Empowerment and respect for your expertise
- Attention to the nervous system and the body
For healthcare workers, this approach respects the reality of practicing in complex systems while supporting your humanity within them.
How Trauma‑Informed Therapy Can Help
Therapy can support you in:
- Releasing chronic stress held in the body
- Processing traumatic or morally injurious experiences without overwhelm
- Reconnecting with emotions in a safe, tolerable way
- Restoring a sense of agency, meaning, and self‑trust
- Learning how to truly rest—not just recover enough to return to work for the next shift
- Clarifying boundaries, values, and next steps in your career or life
Trauma-informed therapy is about restoring resiliency and healing what you have been carrying too long. Cumulative trauma can be like carrying a backpack full of heavy rocks. What a heavy burden! Would you like to unload that backpack?
Modalities Used in My Practice for Healthcare Workers
The evidence-based approaches I use address both mind and body:
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): Helps the brain and nervous system metabolize traumatic memories, reducing distressing flashbacks and intrusive thoughts.
- IFS (Internal Family Systems): Supports understanding and harmonizing internal conflicts, helping you recognize protective parts that have carried trauma and exhaustion.
- Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (if you are interested and when appropriate): Offers a neuroplastic window for profound emotional processing and insight and facilitates traumatic memory reprocessing.
- Mindfulness and Nervous System–Focused Therapies: Grounding, breathwork, and body-based techniques help release trauma stored physically and restore a sense of calm.
Therapy is collaborative and adapted to your needs—there is no one-size-fits-all path.
A Space Where You Don’t Have to Be the Strong One
In this work, you don’t have to:
- Hold it together
- Have the right words
- Take care of the therapist
- Justify why something affected you
You are allowed to arrive exactly as you are—tired, uncertain, grieving, hopeful, or all of the above. You are allowed to arrive exactly as you are—tired, uncertain, grieving, hopeful, or all of the above.
You spend your days showing up for others in moments of crisis. This is a space where you get to be supported without having to prove anything.
With my background, I feel like I have more of an insider’s view (see About) and therefore may have a greater capacity than other counselor’s without such experience, to offer you the help you deserve. Your profession is a tough one that few people are courageous enough to face every day. It can leave wounds, deep wounds that can bleed over to our personal lives. Wounds heal better when some kind of treatment is applied, don’t they? Let’s get started!
Invitation
I see clients in person and via telehealth. My office is located in West Seattle.
You’ve carried enough alone. I would consider it an honor to partner with you as you work toward regaining your joy, increasing your health, and finding more peace. Please use the contact form below to reach out.