Trauma Therapy In
Los Angeles
For PTSD & Nervous System Recovery
Heal trauma stored in your body not just your mind. Real results in 8–12 sessions.
Talk to a Los Angeles Therapist This Week
- Trauma is a nervous system adaptation, not a character flaw or a sign of weakness.
- Shakti treats trauma at the root: nervous system, body, relationships, and identity, not just the memory of what happened.
- We screen for ACE scores as part of intake, so treatment is built on your actual history, not guesswork.
- Approaches include somatic therapy, IFS, Brainspotting, trauma focused CBT, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy when clinically appropriate.
- Available in-person in Culver City and Redondo Beach, or virtually across California.
Trauma reshapes how the body and mind operate, long after the event is over.
This is not a character flaw. It is a survival response. In the United States, about 6 out of every 100 adults will experience PTSD at some point in their life, and nearly two out of three adults report at least one adverse childhood experience that can shape the nervous system for decades.
ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES (ACES) AMONG U.S. ADULTS
Source: Swedo et al., “Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Adults,” CDC MMWR, 2023 (BRFSS 2011–2020 data, 50 states + DC). cdc.gov/mmwr
70%
of U.S. adults have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives, roughly 223 million people
6%
of U.S. adults will have PTSD at some point in their life
63.9%
of U.S. adults report at least one adverse childhood experience
17.3%
of U.S. adults report four or more ACEs, a threshold linked to significantly higher lifetime health risk
~60%
of children experience at least one ACE before age 18, with roughly 1 in 6 experiencing four or more
8% vs 4%
lifetime PTSD prevalence in women vs. men
Sources: National Council for Behavioral Health (2013 data, still the most commonly cited figure for U.S. trauma exposure) | U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD | CDC, MMWR 2023 (adult retrospective data) | systematic review and meta-analysis of ACEs in child population samples (child-specific data)
High-functioning trauma rarely looks like crisis. More often it looks like burnout, overworking, and a body that will not rest. Chronic workplace stress, a pattern closely tied to unresolved trauma and nervous system dysregulation, carries a real economic cost
$300B
estimated annual cost of job stress to U.S. employers in absenteeism, turnover, and lost productivity
Source: The American Institute of Stress, Workplace Stress. This is a widely cited figure, but worth noting honestly: it traces back to a 1979 estimate that its own originator called “guesswork,” later updated to $300B in 2001. It measures overall job stress, not trauma specifically, and its methodology has been publicly questioned by researchers. We are including it because it is the figure most commonly cited in this space, not because we have verified the underlying math ourselves.
TRAUMA IN OUR COMMUNITY
California’s rates of childhood adversity are consistent with the national picture, and they carry particular weight in immigrant, bicultural, and first-generation communities, where acculturative stress, family expectations, and intergenerational trauma often compound the effects of individual ACEs. The research on acculturative stress and access barriers for immigrant communities is well established in the academic literature, though we could not verify a single, precise statistic strong enough to headline here. We would rather describe this honestly than publish a number we cannot stand behind.
Source: Office of the California Surgeon General / California Department of Public Health, via ACEs Aware (2011-2017 data).
11K+
therapy sessions provided by Shakti Therapy
5.0★
Google rating from 75+ verified client reviews
7
languages spoken across our therapy team
In-person + Virtual
Culver City, Redondo Beach & all of California
Prevalence data: National Institute of Mental Health & NAMI (updated 2025)
Understanding Trauma at the Root
Trauma therapy helps you understand what your nervous system learned to do to survive, while giving you a path back to safety in your body, your relationships, and your sense of self.
At Shakti Therapy, trauma treatment is never generic. We do not ask you to simply retell what happened. We look at how the event, or the years of smaller events, reorganized your nervous system, your relationships, your identity, and the story you now carry about yourself.
As part of intake, Shakti evaluates clients for their ACE score, the number of adverse childhood experiences someone was exposed to before age
18. This helps your therapist understand your history accurately from the first session instead of guessing at it later in treatment.
Our trauma therapists support clients in Culver City, Redondo Beach, and virtually throughout California.
What Trauma Can Feel Like
Trauma does not always look like flashbacks or nightmares. Sometimes it looks like never quite feeling safe, even when nothing is wrong. Sometimes it looks like being unable to trust, rest, or let your guard down, even with people who have never given you a reason not to.
- Feeling on edge or easily startled
- Flashbacks or intrusive memories
- Avoiding people, places, or situations
- Numbness or feeling disconnected from your body
- Difficulty trusting others
- Hypervigilance, always scanning for danger
- Nightmares or trouble sleeping
- Emotional flooding or shutdown
- Feeling unsafe in your own body
- Difficulty regulating emotions
- Shame that does not match the situation
- Struggling to stay present
- Repeating painful relationship patterns
- Chronic tension, pain, or fatigue
- Difficulty asking for help
- Feeling fundamentally different from others
What Causes Trauma?
There is rarely one single cause. Trauma develops from single overwhelming events, repeated exposure, relational wounds, culture, and biology. At Shakti Therapy, we help you understand the roots instead of blaming yourself for the symptoms.
01
Single-Incident Trauma
A car accident, assault, natural disaster, medical emergency, or other sudden, overwhelming event can leave the nervous system stuck in a state of threat, even after the danger has passed.
02
Complex or Developmental Trauma
Trauma that happened repeatedly, especially in childhood, from neglect, abuse, instability, or growing up around addiction or violence, shapes the nervous system differently than a single event. It becomes woven into identity, not just memory.
03
Relational and Attachment Trauma
When the people who were supposed to keep you safe were unpredictable, absent, or harmful, your nervous system learns that closeness itself can be dangerous. This shows up later in how you trust, attach, and stay in relationships.
04
Cultural and Intergenerational Trauma
Trauma is not always personal. Immigration, displacement, racism, religious persecution, and family survival stories can live in the nervous system across generations, even when you did not experience the original event yourself.
05
Medical or Body-Based Trauma
Surgeries, chronic illness, birth trauma, and medical emergencies can leave the body holding fear and hypervigilance, even when the medical event is resolved.
06
Cumulative and Vicarious Trauma
Caregivers, first responders, therapists, and people who have spent years absorbing other people’s pain can carry trauma that was never directly theirs. High-functioning
exhaustion is often trauma wearing a productivity mask.
Types of Trauma We Treat
At Shakti Therapy, we support clients dealing with many forms of trauma. Each one requires a different understanding and approach.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Intrusive memories, flashbacks, hypervigilance, and avoidance following a specific traumatic event.
Complex PTSD (CPTSD)
Difficulty with emotional regulation, identity, and relationships from prolonged or repeated trauma, often beginning in childhood.
Childhood and Developmental Trauma
Trauma from neglect, abuse, or instability during formative years that shapes how the nervous system develops.
Racial and Cultural Trauma
The cumulative psychological impact of racism, discrimination, and cultural erasure.
Medical Trauma
Fear, hypervigilance, or avoidance connected to surgeries, diagnoses, birth experiences, or chronic illness.
Attachment Trauma
Relational patterns rooted in early caregiving that was unpredictable, absent, or unsafe.
Intergenerational Trauma
Trauma responses inherited from family history, migration, and survival across generations.
Vicarious and Secondary Trauma
Trauma absorbed through caregiving, first-responder work, or supporting others through crisis.
SingleIncident Trauma
Trauma from one specific overwhelming event, such as an accident, assault, or disaster.
“We treat what happened to you, and what your body decided to become because of it.”
How Trauma Therapy Works at Shakti
Our work is not about forcing you to “just move on.” That does not work because trauma is not just mental. Trauma lives in the body, the nervous system, and the meanings you have assigned to what happened. At Shakti Therapy, trauma treatment is integrative and personalized. We look at the whole picture, not just the memory.
Evidence-Based
Trauma-Focused CBT
Trauma-focused CBT helps you process traumatic memories, challenge distorted beliefs about the event, and reduce the grip trauma has on your daily thinking. This can be especially useful for intrusive thoughts, avoidance, and trauma-related shame.
Recommended as a first-line treatment for PTSD in multiple clinical practice guidelines, including NICE (UK) and the Anxiety Disorders Association of Canada.
Body-Based
Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy helps your body complete the survival responses it was never able to finish. We use grounding, movement, breath, and nervous system regulation to release what got stuck, not just talking about what happened.
Trauma lives in the body as much as the mind. Regulation has to happen there too. The one randomized controlled trial of Somatic Experiencing for PTSD found large effects on symptom severity compared to a waitlist control.
Source: Brom et al., Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2017 (n = 63, Cohen’s d = 0.94-1.26)
TRAUMA PROCESSING
Brainspotting
Brainspotting uses focused eye positions to help access and process trauma stored below conscious awareness. It can be especially useful when talk therapy alone has not fully resolved a traumatic memory.
An emerging modality with a growing but still limited evidence base. A 2017 comparative study (n = 76) found Brainspotting produced PTSD symptom reductions in as few as three sessions, with effect sizes somewhat smaller than EMDR in the same trial. Most existing research has been conducted by clinicians affiliated with Brainspotting’s developers, so independent replication is still needed.
Source: Hodgdon et al., Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 2021
PARTS - BASED
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS helps you understand the parts of you that protect, avoid, shut down, or stay hypervigilant. Instead of pathologizing these responses, we help you understand what they were trying to do for you and build a different relationship with them.
In a small 2021 clinical trial, 92% of participants with PTSD no longer met diagnostic criteria after 16 sessions of IFS therapy. This is a promising finding from one study population; broader replication is still developing.
Source: Hodgdon et al., Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 2021
CLINICALLY SCREENED
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
For some clients, when clinically appropriate, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy may help access and process trauma that has been resistant to talk therapy alone. It requires medical screening and is embedded in a full therapeutic framework, never offered in isolation.
Peer-reviewed research supports lasting reductions in PTSD and trauma-related symptoms at 3 and 6 months post-treatment in eligible clients.
Source: Psychedelic Medicine, 2024 (PubMed)
How Effective Is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma therapy can be highly effective, especially when treatment is matched to the person’s history, nervous system, and goals. At Shakti Therapy, we do not see trauma responses as a personality flaw. We see them as information about what your system had to survive.
Promising, Single RCT
The only randomized controlled trial of Somatic Experiencing for PTSD found large effects on symptom severity compared to a waitlist control.
Brom et al., Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2017 (n = 63, Cohen’s d = 0.94-1.26). One trial. Broader replication is still needed before this can be called well-established.
Well-Established Evidence Base
Trauma-focused CBT and Cognitive Processing Therapy are recommended firstline treatments for PTSD across major international clinical guidelines.
NICE (UK), Anxiety Disorders Association of Canada, and Cochrane systematic reviews (Bisson & Andrew)
Emerging, Growing Evidence
Systematic review and meta-analysis of ketamine RCTs for PTSD, published in a peer-reviewed psychiatry journal (Hedges’ g = 1.01, based on 4 effect estimates). Small number of trials. More research is needed before this is considered a well established finding.
Growing Evidence Base, Single Trial
Hodgdon et al., Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 2021. One study population. Broader replication is still developing.
Emerging, Limited Evidence
A small comparative study found three sessions of Brainspotting reduced PTSD symptoms with effect sizes of roughly 0.74– 1.04, versus 1.19–1.76 for EMDR in the same trial.
Hildebrand et al., 2017 (n = 76). Independent replication beyond Brainspotting-affiliated researchers is limited.
Emerging, Peer-Reviewed
Peer-reviewed research shows lasting reductions in PTSD and trauma-related symptoms at 3 and 6 months post-treatment in eligible KAP clients.
Psychedelic Medicine, 2024 (PubMed). Long-term durability remains an active area of research.
Effect size comparison for PTSD symptom reduction
Bars show standardized effect sizes (Hedges’ g / Cohen’s d / SMD) from different published studies. These are illustrative, not a head-to-head trial. Populations, methods, and follow-up windows differ across studies. The somatic therapy figure comes from a single randomized controlled trial (Brom et al., 2017, Journal of Traumatic Stress, n = 63, Somatic Experiencing vs. waitlist control), the only RCT of its kind to date, and should be read as promising, not conclusive. IFS’s 92% remission rate is a diagnostic-status outcome, not an effect size, so it is reported separately above rather than plotted on this axis. The ketamine figure comes from a small evidence base (four effect estimates in the underlying review) and should also be read as promising, not conclusive. Sources: Brom et al., 2017; Hildebrand et al., 2017; ketamine PTSD systematic review and meta-analysis. Outcomes vary by individual, trauma history, and treatment consistency.
Treatment outcomes vary by individual, trauma history, and consistency of care. Research cited reflects published study findings, not guarantees of individual results. Your therapist will discuss realistic expectations with you directly.
Trauma vs. PTSD
Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD. Understanding the difference helps you get the right support.
Trauma often feels like
Overwhelm, fear, or disconnection following a distressing event. Symptoms may fade with time, support, and safety, or they may settle into longer-lasting patterns.
PTSD often feels like
Persistent, intrusive symptoms, flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance, and hyperarousal that last more than a month and significantly disrupt daily life.
Most people who experience a traumatic event do not go on to develop PTSD. Whether trauma becomes PTSD depends on many factors: prior history, support systems, the nature of the event, and how the nervous system processes it. Either way, both deserve care.
When Should You Seek Therapy for Trauma?
- You feel unsafe even when nothing is wrong
- You avoid people, places, or memories connected to what happened
- You feel disconnected from your body or emotions
- You struggle to trust people, even those who have earned it
- You have flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive memories
- You feel like you are always on guard
- You have tried to "just move on" and it has not worked
- Your relationships keep following the same painful pattern
- Your body holds tension, pain, or exhaustion that will not resolve
- You are ready to stop carrying this alone
You do not have to wait until trauma takes over your life.
Therapy can help when trauma is affecting your sleep, relationships, work, body, self-worth, or ability to feel present in your life.
You do not need to prove that what happened to you was “bad enough.” If trauma is still shaping how you move through the world, that is enough reason to get support.
Why Choose Shakti Therapy for Trauma?
Sessions start at $199. Superbills available for out-of-network reimbursement.
Culturally Responsive Care
We understand trauma shaped by immigration, racism, family systems, religious expectations, and generational silence around what happened. You do not have to explain the cultural layers from scratch.
Nervous-SystemBased Healing
We work with the body, not just the story, because trauma is stored physiologically, not only mentally. Talking about it is often not enough on its own.
Evidence-Based and Integrative
Our trauma therapy may include somatic therapy, IFS, Brainspotting, trauma-focused CBT, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy when clinically appropriate. Modalities that serve the person, not a fixed protocol.
Local and Accessible
In-person in Culver City and Redondo Beach, or virtual, anywhere in California. Sessions start at $199. Superbills available for out-of-network reimbursement.
Trauma-Informed From the First Session
Pacing, consent, and safety are built into how we work from your first consultation, not treated as an afterthought once treatment begins.
Trusted Team
Over 11,000 sessions delivered. 6,000 lives impacted. 7 languages spoken. 75+ five-star reviews. A multilingual, multicultural team trained in the complexity of trauma.
A team that actually gets it.
Our therapists are multilingual, multicultural, and trained in the complexity of what it means to carry trauma while still showing up for a demanding life. You should not have to explain your background to your therapist.
11K+
Sessions delivered
5.0★
Google rating
7
Languages spoken
6K+
Lives impacted
Start Trauma Therapy in Culver City or Redondo Beach
You do not have to keep living in survival mode. At Shakti Therapy, we help you understand your trauma responses, regulate your nervous system, reconnect with your body, and build a life that feels rooted in safety rather than driven by threat.
South Bay Location
Redondo Beach, CA
4230 Overland Ave
Culver City, CA 90230
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions people bring when first exploring trauma therapy at Shakti.