Trauma therapy that moves at the right speed.
Written by Gerry McNamara, LMFTLast reviewed May 2026
Online sessions across Oregon. Pacing-first, multi-modal work for adults whose systems have been carrying something old, or something recent that hasn't settled.
Request a free 15-min consultation →Working at the speed your nervous system can handle.
Trauma lives in the body more than in the story. Trauma therapy works with both. Going slowly enough that your system gets to be part of the process is what makes the difference.
A lot of people come to trauma work expecting that the goal is to talk through what happened. Sometimes that's part of it. More often, the work is about what your body and nervous system have been doing since. The hypervigilance, the shutting down, the patterns that look unrelated but trace back. We work with what's here, not just what was there.
Pacing is the whole game in trauma work. We don't open more than your system can hold at one time. We build resources alongside the harder material. We name what we're doing as we're doing it, so nothing happens to you in the room. You stay an active participant in your own work.
We work in three directions: stabilization (the day-to-day tools your system needs to feel safer), processing (the slower work with the material itself, when and only when you're ready), and integration (what it means to live forward without carrying it the same way).
Multi-modal, paced by your system.
Trauma work isn't a single modality. It's a paced combination of approaches matched to what your system can hold at any given moment.
I draw from cognitive behavioral therapy for the practical pattern-interrupting that gives daily life some traction, and an attachment-informed lens that takes the relational history seriously without making it a diagnosis.
I've been practicing for eighteen years and I've worked with a lot of different trauma. What I've learned is that the part of you that knows what pace is safe is usually right, even when the part of you that wants to be done with this is louder. We listen to both.
Trauma work isn't about reaching a destination called "healed." It's about getting your system to a place where the past has weight without running the show. That's a real outcome. It also takes the time it takes.
Questions I get asked about trauma therapy.
What counts as trauma?
More than people usually think. There's big-T trauma (single overwhelming events, abuse, violence, accidents) and small-t trauma (the slower accumulation of experiences that didn't get processed at the time, often from childhood). Both are real. Both can leave a system stuck on alert. Part of the early work is sorting out what we're actually working with.Do you do EMDR?
I don't. I work from cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic, and trauma-informed pacing. If EMDR is specifically what you're looking for, I'd point you to a colleague who specializes in it. There's no single right modality for trauma; it depends on what you're working with and what fits.Is trauma therapy going to make things worse before it gets better?
Sometimes, briefly. Trauma work moves slowly on purpose. Going too fast is one of the main reasons people drop out. We pace at the speed your nervous system can handle. If a session brings up too much, we slow down, name what's happening, and use the rest of the hour to stabilize before you leave. The pace is part of the work, not an obstacle to it.Will I have to talk about everything in detail?
No. Trauma work isn't about reciting what happened. It's about working with what your system has been doing to keep you safe since. Some clients describe events in detail; others don't, and the work still moves. The story matters; the retelling isn't required.Does insurance cover trauma therapy in Oregon?
Yes, in most cases. PTSD and acute stress are clinical diagnoses covered under standard outpatient mental health benefits. I'm in-network with most major Oregon carriers. We can talk about the diagnostic side and how it shows up on a claim during the consult.
Related work I do across Oregon.
Anxiety therapy
Anxiety often has trauma roots. When the work needs to be paced more carefully, we treat it as trauma work first.
Read moreDepression therapy
Depression can be the system going quiet under what trauma has been asking it to hold. Sometimes the two need to be worked together.
Read moreGrief therapy
Traumatic loss and ambiguous loss are real grief and also real trauma. The work crosses between the two more often than people expect.
Read more
Ready to talk it through? Let's see if we're a fit.
Send a message, or set up a free 15-minute phone consult. You can reach me by email, call, or text. I'll get back to you within two business days.