Sexual Abuse Trauma Therapy in California

Virtual Therapy in California

You Survived What Happened to You

What happened to you was not your fault, and you do not have to rush your healing. Abuse and violence includes sexual abuse, harrasment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, stalking, human trafficking, or domestic violence. When someone abuses or abused you in childhood or adulthood, when the danger has passed, your mind and body may continue to carry the memories of what happened.

Your Mind and Body Have Been Protecting You

Post-traumatic response can look like flashbacks, nightmares, panic, hypervigilance, anger, depression, dissociation, difficulty concentrating, or feeling disconnected from yourself. Do they feel familiar to you? These responses are often ways your nervous system learned to protect you and help you survive. Rather than seeing these responses as something wrong with you, we can approach them with curiosity, compassion, and respect for the wisdom of your body.

Healing at YOUR pace

When you feel ready, we can work together in a grounded, collaborative space to process what happened. This may mean we move at your pace, and at speed you are ready for. You may experience reclaiming power that was taken from you. Together, we can support your mind and body to honoring the reactions that had to happen, and the normal responses that helped you survive. Liberation-centered healing is about reclaiming your voice, your body, your choices, and your sense of self, so you can experience liberation, reconnect with your authentic self, and self empowerment.

What Sexual Abuse Trauma Can Look Like

Sexual trauma can affect how you see yourself, your body, your relationships, and your sense of safety. You may feel anxious, disconnected, ashamed, exhausted, or constantly on guard. You may look fine on the outside while quietly carrying a lot inside.

There is nothing wrong with you for responding to what happened in the ways you learned to survive

Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Childhood sexual abuse can continue to affect you well into adulthood. You may struggle with boundaries, intimacy, self-worth, relationships, or trusting yourself.

You may have learned to stay quiet, keep the peace, or take care of others. You don’t have to be “over it” just because you’re an adult.

How Sexual Trauma Can Affect RelationshipsIncest & Family-Related Trauma

When abuse happens within a family, healing can be especially complicated. You may carry love, anger, grief, loyalty, or betrayal all at once.

You don’t have to choose which feelings are allowed. Therapy can be a place to make sense of what happened without minimizing your experience or blaming yourself.

Sexual Assault & Rape Trauma

After sexual assault or rape, you may question your response to what happened—especially if you froze, dissociated, complied, or couldn’t fight back.

What happened was not your fault. Our sessions together can be non-shaming space to process what happened at a pace that respects your boundaries.

Body-Based Trauma Responses

Trauma isn’t only held in our memories. It can also show up in the body through tension, numbness, freezing, hypervigilance, or feeling unsafe.

Your body isn’t betraying you. It may be responding in ways it learned to protect you. Therapy can help you reconnect with your body without forcing you to move faster than you’re ready for.

Rebuilding Safety & Self-Trust

Healing can mean learning to trust yourself again.

This may look like listening to your needs, setting boundaries, saying no, resting without guilt, and allowing yourself to take up space.

Your needs matter. Your boundaries matter. Your ability to rest matters.

How EMDR Can Support Sexual Trauma Processing

EMDR can help process traumatic experiences and the beliefs, emotions, and body responses connected to them.

We don’t have to rush into processing. Safety comes first, and you remain in control of the process.

How Brainspotting Can Support Trauma Processing

Brainspotting offers another way to work with trauma by bringing attention to your body and internal experience.

For some people, it can create space to process experiences that feel difficult to put into words. We go at your pace.

How I can help you...

My approach integrates Brainspotting and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), along with Liberation Psychology, Critical Race Theory, identity and belonging work, and exploration of the intersections of culture, race, gender, and sexuality. I incorporate somatic awareness, mindfulness, and self-compassion to help you notice how stress and trauma can be held in the body, while creating space to process traumatic experiences and develop greater awareness of the patterns you learned or inherited.

You and I will explore how trauma, racism, oppression, family patterns, cultural experiences, and identities may shape the way you see yourself, relate to others, and experience your body and emotions.

Our sessions together help to put language to your experiences, understand intergenerational and learned patterns, challenge internalized oppressive beliefs, and reconnect with your identity and sense of belonging. I support you in developing greater self-compassion, resilience, agency, and liberating yourself to live more authentically—while reclaiming the parts of yourself, your culture, and your story that may have been silenced

Healing isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about creating more space to be fully yourself.

Schedule a free 15 minutes phone consultation

619-719-5567

angel@crescentshorespsychotherapy.com

I live and work on unceded land of Kumeyaay Nation.
To learn more and join me in supporting Indigenous communities,
visit Native Governance Center, Museum of Us, and Native Lands.