Relationship Trauma Therapist | Fairbanks, Alaska

Healing from trauma is slow and challenging work. The good news is, your mind has an amazing capacity to survive and recover. You can’t change what happened, but you can change how you relate to it. You can teach your body the feeling of safety. You can learn strategies to manage your trauma responses, and teach your brain that the world can be a safe place. You can learn boundaries that help you to feel safer in relationships. You can feel hope and joy again.

Abuse can come in a number of forms. We often think of abuse as physical: hitting or leaving bruises. But emotional and mental abuse (using your feelings to control you or messing with your head) is even more common. When the dynamics in a relationship include a dynamic of power and control, that’s when we call it abuse. Often these relationships are characterized by isolation and dependence, which helps an abuser leverage control. If you wonder if you are in an abusive relationship, talk to someone. Reaching out to a therapist, a domestic violence advocacy agency, or a crisis line can be a good place to start. Local resources in Fairbanks include the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living and the Healing Native Hearts Coalition.

Relationship trauma can make relationships into a minefield. The patterns you learned in your earliest relationships set you up for your attachment style as an adult. If you didn’t feel safe in your earliest relationships, it may be hard for you to trust your partner to be there for you, so that you keep them at a distance, or you may feel needy and clingy in your relationships, fearing that they will abandon you. Abusive relationships in adulthood can also make it hard to trust in a relationship. Experiencing repeated boundary violations can make it very hard to recognize healthy boundaries, or to understand how to enforce them.

If you find yourself reacting in your relationship as though your partner was someone from your past, you may showing signs of relationship trauma. For instance, someone may be expecting that their new partner will cheat on them, because their ex cheated. Relationship trauma can also look like flashbacks and nightmares, or believing the hurtful things that your ex said about you are true, and repeating those things to yourself when you feel bad or when you make a mistake.

In relationship trauma therapy, we can help you work through these relationship dynamics so that you can have connected, supportive, safe relationships.