Therapy for trauma, grief, and relationships
Whether you’re grieving, recovering from a traumatic experience, or seeking to improve your relationships, therapy provides a space to tend to your emotional experience, deepen self-awareness, and support connection.
Therapy with Maura
Welcome!
I am a psychotherapist practicing with clients in California as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, #134128, and I am certified as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (S.E.P.).
I specialize in working with adult clients impacted by trauma, grief, and relationship issues, integrating somatic and Jungian/depth-oriented modalities.
I meet with clients in person at my office in Brentwood, Los Angeles, and via telehealth for clients throughout California.
Email me at therapywithmaura@gmail.com to set up a free consultation.
Specialties
Trauma
As a trauma therapist, I work with individuals who have experienced relational trauma and shock trauma. Relational trauma occurs in the context of a relationship: experiences of abuse, neglect, manipulation, betrayal, and a lack of consistent emotional support through developmental milestones constitute relational trauma . Shock trauma refers to single-incident, life-threatening events, including accidents, sexual assaults, medical procedures, and natural disasters. Somatic therapy is recognized as highly effective approach for recovery from traumatic incidents, P.T.S.D., and complex P.T.S.D, which often present in states of anxiety and depression. As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I focus on supporting the nervous system in restoring regulation and coherence and developing resilience. I also draw upon the Hakomi somatic mindfulness method to tend to deep emotional states in trauma work, including repairing attachment wounds.
Grief
Grief is a deeply psychological process, and it calls for witnessing the full range of responses, which can vary from sadness and anger, to existential questions and spiritual engagement. Sadly, loss is not fully met and honored in most communities today, and therapy serves as a sacred container for engaging in remembrance of the one who has died and tending to the many emotional experiences that emerge in connection to death. Grieving includes mourning, story telling, expressing sadness and anger, and finding ways to re-engage with life after death has turned things upside down. Grief work called me into the vocation of becoming a therapist, and I respect and honor the vulnerability of the process.
Relationships
Relationships carry profound parts of each partner’s psyche, influenced by formative experiences, previous relationships, cultural dispositions, and each person’s unique personality organization. In couples therapy, supporting the health of the relationship is the primary focus, through developing as full an understanding of the other as possible, while developing healthy emotional communication skills and creating safety for processes of change. Pre-marital counseling focuses on building a strong foundation for a long term marriage. Individual therapy also supports developing awareness of attachment patterns and interpersonal dynamics.
Therapy works best when the therapeutic relationship feels right. I offer complimentary phone consultations for prospective clients so we can have a sense of one another before beginning therapy. My approach is warm and gentle, and over time, I will help you look at the parts of the story that may be challenging to examine alone. I enjoy working with folks who are introspective and curious about their psychological experience.
The personal (and so, the psychological) is political. Though I generally do not disclose many details about myself in therapy, I think it is important for potential clients to know that feminist theory, liberation psychology, and queer affirmative therapy are strong influences on my approach to therapy.