Trauma Therapy in Newton

Past experiences continue affecting your present. Perhaps memories intrude unexpectedly, or you avoid situations that remind you of what happened. Maybe you feel disconnected from yourself or others. Newton Neuropsychology Group provides trauma-focused therapy for children, adolescents, and adults throughout Newton and the greater Boston area. We help you process traumatic experiences and reduce their impact on your daily life.

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When the Past Won't Stay in the Past

You might experience flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive memories about traumatic events. Perhaps you avoid people, places, or activities that remind you of what happened. Maybe you feel constantly on edge, easily startled, or hypervigilant about potential threats. These experiences can make daily life feel exhausting and unpredictable.

Trauma creates lasting effects:


  • You might feel stuck reliving experiences that happened in the past
  • You may experience numbness or disconnection from emotions and relationships
  • You could feel hypervigilant with difficulty relaxing even in safe situations
  • You might struggle with shame or self-blame about traumatic experiences

At Newton Neuropsychology Group, our therapists specialize in trauma-focused approaches designed to help you process traumatic memories, reduce symptom intensity and frequency, and develop a sense of safety and control. Trauma doesn't have to define your future.

Understanding Traumatic Experiences and Their Impact

Trauma includes experiences that overwhelmed your ability to cope, whether single incidents like accidents or assaults, or ongoing situations like abuse or neglect. Trauma affects how your brain processes danger and safety, often leaving you stuck in survival responses long after the actual threat has ended.


You're not alone if trauma affects your life. Many people experience traumatic events during their lifetime. The impact varies, some people recover relatively quickly while others develop lasting symptoms requiring professional support.


Trauma can create various symptoms:


  • Re-experiencing includes flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive memories where you feel like the trauma is happening again rather than remembering it as a past event.
  • Avoidance involves staying away from people, places, activities, or thoughts that remind you of the trauma. This avoidance often limits life significantly.
  • Negative mood and thoughts may include persistent negative beliefs about yourself or the world, distorted blame, difficulty experiencing positive emotions, or feeling detached from others.
  • Hyperarousal involves being constantly on alert, easily startled, difficulty sleeping, irritability, trouble concentrating, or engaging in reckless behavior.


Children may show different trauma responses including regression in developmental skills, acting out traumatic events in play, increased clinginess, or behavioral problems.


Trauma responses are normal reactions to abnormal experiences. Your symptoms aren't weakness, they're how your brain protected you during overwhelming situations.

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Specialized Trauma-Focused Treatment

Our therapists have training in evidence-based trauma treatments that specifically address how trauma affects the brain, body, and emotions. We don't use generic talk therapy for trauma, we employ structured approaches designed to help you process traumatic memories safely while developing skills to manage symptoms.


Newton Neuropsychology Group offers psychotherapy which incorporates elements of several trauma-focused approaches. These modalities help you target the sources of symptoms by helping you reprocess trauma and reduce the frequency and intensity of trauma-related difficulties.


Many clients come to us after completing evaluations, so their therapist already understands their cognitive profile and how it relates to trauma responses. This integrated knowledge creates more targeted treatment. We work with children, adolescents, and adults, adapting trauma therapy to developmental stage and individual needs.


Our practice offers both in-office trauma therapy at our Newton location and telehealth sessions throughout the greater Boston area. This flexibility allows you to access treatment in the format that feels safest and most comfortable for your particular situation.

What Evidence-Based Treatment Provides

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Reduced Symptom Intensity

Experience less frequent and less intense flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive memories. Trauma-focused therapy helps your brain process memories so they feel more like the past than the present.

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Decreased Avoidance

Gradually reclaim activities, places, and relationships you've been avoiding. Therapy helps you approach previously avoided situations while managing distress effectively.

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Improved Emotional Regulation

Develop skills to manage intense emotions, reduce hypervigilance, and feel safer in your body. Trauma therapy addresses the physiological activation that keeps you stuck in survival mode.

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Changed Trauma Beliefs

Challenge and modify negative beliefs about yourself, others, or the world that developed from traumatic experiences. Many clients describe feeling less shame and self-blame.

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Enhanced Daily Functioning

Improve sleep, concentration, relationships, and overall quality of life as trauma symptoms decrease and you develop new coping strategies.

Moving Beyond Trauma

Without trauma-focused treatment, symptoms often persist or worsen. Avoidance may expand, shrinking your world. Relationships can suffer when emotional numbness or hypervigilance create distance. Work or school performance may decline. Some people develop additional problems like substance use, depression, or anxiety as they attempt to cope with trauma symptoms.



With evidence-based trauma therapy, healing becomes possible. You can process traumatic memories so they no longer intrude constantly. Situations you've been avoiding may become manageable. Many clients describe feeling more present in their lives, able to experience positive emotions, and connected to people around them. While trauma experiences remain part of your history, they no longer control your present.

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Begin Healing From Trauma

If past traumatic experiences continue affecting your present through intrusive memories, avoidance, emotional numbness, or hypervigilance, trauma-focused therapy can help. We serve individuals throughout Newton and the greater Boston area.


Our therapists use evidence-based approaches specifically designed for processing trauma and reducing symptom impact.

How Trauma-Focused Treatment Works

01

Safety and Stabilization

We meet with you to understand your trauma history, current symptoms, and treatment goals. Early sessions focus on building a therapeutic relationship, establishing safety, and teaching emotion regulation and grounding skills. Before processing traumatic memories, you need tools to manage distress effectively. For children, this phase often involves significant parent involvement.

02

Trauma Processing

Once you've developed stabilization skills, therapy shifts to processing traumatic memories. Using trauma-focused techniques, we help you reprocess traumatic experiences so your brain can integrate them as past events rather than continuing to experience them as current threats. This phase involves gradually approaching traumatic memories while using skills to manage emotional and physiological responses. Processing helps reduce the intensity and frequency of intrusive memories, nightmares, and flashbacks.

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Reconnection and Integration

As trauma symptoms decrease, therapy focuses on reconnecting with activities, relationships, and parts of yourself that trauma had disrupted. We work on challenging trauma-related beliefs, rebuilding trust, and creating meaningful engagement with life beyond survival. Many clients describe emerging from therapy feeling more whole and able to pursue goals that trauma had made impossible.

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Evidence-Based Treatment for Traumatic Experiences

Our trauma therapy incorporates elements from several evidence-based modalities specifically designed to address how trauma affects the brain and body.


These approaches recognize that trauma isn't just a mental health issue, it affects your entire nervous system, leaving you stuck in protective responses that were adaptive during trauma but interfere with current functioning. Trauma-focused therapy helps your brain and body understand that the danger has passed.


Treatment targets the sources of symptoms by helping you reprocess trauma rather than just managing symptoms superficially. Processing allows traumatic memories to be integrated properly so they no longer trigger intense reactions. The frequency and intensity of symptoms typically decrease significantly as processing progresses.


Trauma therapy is conducted at a pace that feels manageable. You maintain control throughout treatment and can adjust pacing as needed. The goal is healing, not retraumatization.

Common Questions About Trauma Therapy

  • Will trauma therapy make me relive traumatic experiences?

    Evidence-based trauma therapy involves approaching traumatic memories in controlled, manageable ways while using skills to stay grounded. You won't be retraumatized. Treatment is designed to help you process memories so they lose their power over you.

  • How long does trauma therapy take?

    Treatment length varies based on trauma complexity, symptom severity, and your individual response. Some people experience significant improvement in several months. Others with complex trauma histories may benefit from longer treatment. We regularly assess progress and adjust treatment as needed.

  • Can childhood trauma be treated in adulthood?

    Absolutely. Many adults seek trauma therapy for experiences from childhood. Trauma therapy can be effective regardless of when traumatic experiences occurred. Your brain maintains neuroplasticity throughout life, allowing healing even decades after trauma.

  • What if I don't remember all details of my trauma?

    You don't need complete memory recall for trauma therapy to be effective. Treatment focuses on processing the memories and sensations you do experience, as well as addressing trauma-related beliefs and responses.

Trauma Can Be Healed

Past traumatic experiences don't have to control your present and future. Evidence-based trauma therapy helps you process what happened, reduce symptom intensity, and reclaim your life. Newton Neuropsychology Group serves individuals throughout Newton and the greater Boston area.