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Trauma & PTSD Therapy in Arcadia, CA | Aspire Counseling Group

Trauma and PTSD Therapy

Do you experience distressing memories, flashbacks, or nightmares related to something painful that happened?

Do you feel on edge, easily startled, numb, disconnected, or unable to fully relax?

Do you avoid certain places, people, conversations, or situations because they remind you of what happened?

Are guilt, shame, sadness, anger, anxiety, or fear affecting your relationships, work, school, or daily life?

Trauma can affect the way you feel, think, connect, sleep, work, parent, and move through the world. Sometimes trauma shows up as flashbacks or nightmares. Other times, it shows up as anxiety, irritability, emotional numbness, avoidance, shame, relationship difficulties, or feeling like your body is still on alert even when you know you are safe.

At Aspire Counseling Group, we provide compassionate, evidence-based trauma and PTSD therapy in Arcadia, CA for children, teens, adults, couples, and families. Our trauma-informed therapists help clients understand the impact of painful experiences, develop emotional regulation skills, process trauma when appropriate, and move toward a greater sense of safety, connection, and control.

Our multilingual team offers therapy in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, ASL, and Armenian, with culturally responsive care that honors your background, identity, values, and lived experience.

Ready to get started?
Call us at (626) 639-8844 or book an appointment online. We’ll help you get started at a pace that feels safe, supportive, and manageable.
Call (626) 639-8844
Text (626) 639-8844
Book Appointment

What Is Trauma?

Trauma is not defined only by what happened. The impact of an experience can also be shaped by factors such as your sense of safety, control, connection, available support, and ability to cope at the time.

Trauma-related distress may follow a single event or repeated experiences, including childhood adversity, relationship harm, loss, violence, medical experiences, accidents, neglect, or other frightening or overwhelming circumstances.

Some people know exactly which experience is connected to their symptoms. Others notice anxiety, emotional reactivity, avoidance, difficulty trusting, or feeling disconnected without immediately understanding where those patterns came from.

Therapy can help you explore these experiences and their impact without requiring you to decide on your own whether something “counts” as trauma.

What Is PTSD?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a mental health condition that can develop after certain types of traumatic exposure.

Symptoms may include intrusive memories or nightmares, avoidance of reminders, changes in mood or beliefs, feeling detached from others, hypervigilance, irritability, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbance, or feeling constantly on guard.

Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD. Some people experience significant trauma-related distress without meeting full diagnostic criteria for PTSD and may still benefit from therapy.

Confidential Therapy Room at Aspire Counseling Group in Arcadia CA

How Trauma Therapy Can Help

Trauma therapy provides a supportive space to understand what happened, how it affected you, and how past experiences may still be influencing your life today.

Trauma therapy does not mean immediately telling your therapist every detail of what happened.

For some people, treatment begins by focusing on current symptoms, emotional regulation, relationships, boundaries, sleep, anxiety, or coping skills. For others, processing specific experiences may eventually become an important part of treatment.

The approach and pace should depend on your history, symptoms, goals, readiness, and response to therapy.

Therapy may help reduce trauma-related distress, strengthen emotional regulation and coping skills, decrease avoidance, improve relationships, and help you respond differently to reminders or triggers over time.

Our Trauma-Informed Approach

At Aspire Counseling Group, we take a trauma-informed, evidence-based, and whole-person approach to treatment.

Trauma-informed therapy is not one specific type of therapy. It is an approach that recognizes how overwhelming experiences may affect emotions, relationships, beliefs, behavior, and a person’s sense of safety.

Our approach emphasizes safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and individualized care. Your therapist will work with you to understand your concerns and develop treatment goals based on your needs, history, preferences, and readiness.

This is especially important because some behaviors that create difficulties today may have once served an important protective function.

Avoiding conflict may have helped you feel safer. Staying highly aware of other people’s moods may have helped you anticipate what was coming next. Emotional distance may have protected you from being hurt.

Therapy can help you understand these patterns without judgment while exploring whether they are still helping you today.

Depending on your needs, treatment may incorporate EMDR therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills, attachment-based therapy, mindfulness and grounding strategies, emotional regulation skills, and other trauma-informed interventions.

Want to understand more about what treatment actually looks like? Read our guide to Trauma-Informed Therapy in Arcadia: What Healing From Trauma Can Look Like.

Ani Martikyan, LMFT, Founder and Clinical Director of Aspire Counseling Group in Arcadia, California.

Ani Martikyan, LMFT

Aspire Counseling Group is led by Clinical Director Ani Martikyan, LMFT, whose areas of specialization include trauma, anxiety, and trauma-informed care. Ani helps shape Aspire’s clinical approach and supports the practice’s commitment to thoughtful, individualized, and trauma-informed treatment.

Our therapists bring different areas of training and experience, allowing us to match clients with a therapist whose approach, specialties, and experience fit their individual needs.

Meet Ani

Trauma, the Body, and the Nervous System

Trauma can affect more than thoughts and memories. Stress responses also involve the nervous system and body.

You may logically know that you are safe while still experiencing physical or emotional reactions that feel difficult to control.

You may notice:

  • feeling constantly alert
  • becoming startled easily
  • physical tension
  • difficulty sleeping
  • panic or intense anxiety
  • shutting down or withdrawing
  • emotional numbness
  • irritability
  • difficulty relaxing
  • feeling overwhelmed during conflict

These experiences can have many possible causes and do not automatically mean that someone has experienced trauma or has PTSD.

When they are connected to past experiences, therapy can help you better understand what your mind and body may have learned to anticipate and develop additional ways of responding in the present.

Trauma Does Not Always Look Like Trauma

Sometimes the effects of difficult or overwhelming experiences are easy to recognize. Other times, the connection between the past and what you are experiencing today may be less obvious.

You may not think of an experience as particularly traumatic, or you may feel that you have already moved on from it. Yet past experiences can sometimes continue to influence how you respond to stress, relationships, conflict, uncertainty, or situations that remind your mind or body of something that happened before.

Trauma-related stress can sometimes show up as:

  • anxiety, worry, panic, or difficulty relaxing
  • depression, sadness, emotional numbness, or low motivation
  • anger, irritability, or feeling easily overwhelmed
  • difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, restlessness, or other cognitive symptoms that can sometimes resemble ADHD
  • trouble sleeping or feeling constantly tired
  • withdrawing from others or avoiding certain situations
  • difficulty trusting, setting boundaries, or feeling secure in relationships
  • feeling unusually sensitive to criticism, rejection, conflict, or changes in other people’s moods

These symptoms can have many different causes. Experiencing them does not necessarily mean that you have unresolved trauma, and symptoms such as difficulty concentrating or restlessness should not automatically be assumed to be trauma rather than ADHD or another condition.

Therapy can help you explore what may be contributing to your symptoms, understand how past and present experiences may be affecting you, and determine what type of support may be most appropriate.

Common Signs of Trauma and PTSD

You may consider trauma therapy if you experience:

  • distressing memories, flashbacks, or nightmares
  • avoidance of reminders, places, people, or conversations
  • feeling on edge, easily startled, or hypervigilant
  • emotional numbness or feeling disconnected from yourself or others
  • anxiety, panic, irritability, or anger
  • shame, guilt, sadness, or self-blame
  • difficulty trusting others or feeling safe in relationships
  • sleep problems or difficulty relaxing
  • feeling stuck in survival mode
  • trouble concentrating or feeling present
  • physical tension or other stress-related physical symptoms
  • feeling as though the past continues to affect your daily life

You do not need to experience every symptom or have a PTSD diagnosis to talk with a therapist. Therapy can help explore what may be contributing to your symptoms and what type of support may be appropriate.

EMDR Therapy for Trauma

For some clients, EMDR therapy may be incorporated into trauma treatment.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. During EMDR, a client may focus on aspects of a distressing memory while engaging in bilateral stimulation, such as guided eye movements or other alternating stimulation.

EMDR is designed to help process distressing experiences and reduce the emotional intensity associated with memories, thoughts, beliefs, and physical sensations.

EMDR does not erase a memory or change what happened. Successful treatment may allow someone to remember an experience without experiencing the same degree of distress or feeling as though the past is intruding as strongly into the present.

Whether EMDR is appropriate depends on your history, symptoms, stability, treatment goals, and readiness. Your therapist can help determine whether EMDR or another approach may be appropriate for you.

Alicia Rivera, LCSW, PsyD

Alicia works with clients experiencing trauma, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, and other concerns connected to difficult or overwhelming experiences. Her approach incorporates EMDR and DBT-informed strategies to help clients process distressing experiences, strengthen coping skills, and feel more grounded.

Meet Alicia

Trauma Therapy for Children, Teens, and Adults

Trauma can affect people differently depending on age, development, individual circumstances, and life experience.

Children may show distress through sleep difficulties, clinginess, behavior changes, irritability, regression, anxiety, or difficulty separating from caregivers.

Teens may experience mood changes, withdrawal, anger, anxiety, school difficulties, self-blame, avoidance, or feeling disconnected.

Adults may notice anxiety, depression, relationship patterns, parenting stress, emotional numbness, avoidance, difficulty trusting, or feeling constantly on guard.

Aspire Counseling Group offers child therapy, teen therapy, and individual therapy for clients affected by difficult or traumatic experiences. We can also support families when trauma affects communication, routines, relationships, or functioning at home.

Adriana Sanchez Morales, bilingual English and Spanish therapist in Arcadia

Adriana Sanchez Morales, AMFT

Adriana provides trauma-informed therapy for clients navigating anxiety, emotional distress, difficult past experiences, and relationship concerns. She offers therapy in both English and Spanish and focuses on creating a supportive, collaborative space where clients can explore their experiences at a pace that feels manageable.

Meet Adriana

Trauma, Attachment, and Relationships

Trauma can sometimes affect how people experience trust, closeness, conflict, and vulnerability.

You may find yourself seeking reassurance, becoming highly sensitive to signs of rejection, avoiding vulnerability, putting other people’s needs ahead of your own, withdrawing during conflict, or struggling to trust even when you want to feel close to someone.

These patterns can have many possible causes and do not automatically indicate trauma or a particular attachment style.

Attachment-based therapy can help explore how earlier relationship experiences may be influencing your expectations about closeness, trust, safety, and your own worth.

When these patterns are creating distress between partners, couples therapy may provide additional support.

Spanish-speaking therapist in Arcadia

Ivana Gomez del Campo, AMFT

Ivana provides trauma-informed therapy in English and Spanish for clients working through painful experiences, anxiety, relationship patterns, and emotional challenges. Her warm, culturally responsive approach helps clients better understand how past experiences may be affecting their emotions and relationships today.

Meet Ivana

Healing From Trauma

Healing does not mean forgetting what happened or pretending that painful experiences were not important.

For many people, it means developing a greater understanding of how the past has affected them while building more choice in how they respond in the present.

Therapy may help you feel less overwhelmed by reminders, understand patterns that once seemed confusing, develop healthier relationships, reconnect with parts of yourself that received less attention during periods of stress, and move through life with a greater sense of safety and agency.

Learn More About Trauma and Healing

If you’re trying to understand how past experiences may still be affecting you, these guides may be helpful:

Is It Trauma or Just a Bad Memory?

Learn how painful experiences can continue to affect emotions, relationships, and your sense of safety and how to recognize when something from the past may still be affecting the present.

Understanding How Trauma Affects Our Sense of Self

Explore how trauma may influence identity, shame, self-worth, negative core beliefs, and relationships.

Trauma-Informed Therapy in Arcadia: What Healing From Trauma Can Look Like

Learn what trauma-informed therapy actually looks like, including pacing, emotional regulation, collaboration, and when approaches such as EMDR may be incorporated.

Trauma and PTSD Therapy in Arcadia and Online Across California

Aspire Counseling Group provides trauma and PTSD therapy in Arcadia, CA and online therapy throughout California.

Our Arcadia office serves clients from Pasadena, San Marino, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, Temple City, and communities throughout the San Gabriel Valley.

Our therapists offer trauma-informed care in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, ASL, and Armenian. We help match clients with a therapist based on their concerns, preferences, scheduling needs, and treatment goals.

You do not need to know exactly which therapy approach you need before reaching out. Our team can help you determine which therapist may be a good fit.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a mental health condition that can develop after certain types of traumatic exposure.

Symptoms may include intrusive memories or nightmares, avoidance of reminders, changes in mood or beliefs, feeling detached from others, hypervigilance, irritability, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbance, or feeling constantly on guard.

Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD. Some people experience significant trauma-related distress without meeting full diagnostic criteria for PTSD and may still benefit from therapy.

Calm, private therapy office in Arcadia, California

Getting Started Is Simple

1. Reach Out

Call, text, or request an appointment online.

2. We Help Match You With a Therapist

Our care coordinator will listen to your concerns and help connect you with a therapist who fits your needs, preferences, and schedule.

3. Begin Therapy With Support

Your therapist will work with you to develop treatment goals and determine an approach and pace based on your individual needs.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Taking the first step can feel difficult, especially when past experiences have affected your ability to feel safe, trust others, or talk about what happened.

You do not need to have everything figured out before reaching out.

Call or text (626) 639-8844 or schedule an appointment online. We’ll help connect you with a therapist who can support your needs and goals.

Frequently Asked Questions About Trauma and PTSD Therapy

Q: How do I know if I need trauma therapy?

A: You may consider trauma therapy if painful experiences continue to affect your mood, relationships, sleep, sense of safety, ability to focus, or daily life. Symptoms may include intrusive memories, nightmares, avoidance, anxiety, numbness, irritability, shame, guilt, or feeling constantly on edge.

You do not need to have a PTSD diagnosis to talk with a therapist about these experiences.

Q: Will therapy make me relive my trauma?

A: Trauma therapy should not require you to discuss painful experiences in detail before you are ready. Treatment can begin with current concerns, coping skills, emotional regulation, relationships, or other goals before directly processing past experiences when appropriate.

Q: Can therapy help with flashbacks or nightmares?

A: Therapy may help reduce trauma-related distress, including distress associated with flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive memories, and triggers. The appropriate treatment approach depends on your symptoms, history, and individual needs.

Q: What is EMDR therapy, and can it help with trauma?

A: EMDR is a structured therapy that may be used to address distressing memories and trauma-related symptoms. It does not erase memories or change what happened. Treatment may help reduce the distress associated with a memory and the thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or physical sensations connected to it.

Q: What if I do not remember everything that happened?

A: You do not need to remember every detail of an experience to talk about how it may be affecting you today. Therapy can focus on your current emotions, beliefs, relationships, physical responses, symptoms, and the information you do remember.

Q: Can trauma therapy help if my trauma happened years ago?

A: People sometimes seek therapy months or years after a difficult experience because they notice continuing anxiety, avoidance, relationship difficulties, emotional reactivity, shame, or other patterns. Therapy can help explore whether past experiences may be contributing to what you are experiencing now.

Q: Can children and teens receive trauma therapy?

A: Yes. Children and teens can receive developmentally appropriate therapy for trauma-related concerns. Treatment may also involve parents or caregivers when clinically appropriate.

Q: Can I do trauma therapy online?

A: Aspire Counseling Group offers telehealth throughout California in addition to in-person therapy in Arcadia. Whether online trauma therapy is appropriate depends on the individual, their symptoms, privacy, safety, treatment needs, and therapeutic approach.

Q: How long does trauma therapy take?

A: There is no standard timeline. Length of treatment depends on your symptoms, history, goals, current circumstances, treatment approach, and response to therapy.

Q: Do I need PTSD to receive trauma therapy?

A: No. Someone may experience distress related to painful or overwhelming experiences without meeting diagnostic criteria for PTSD. A therapist can help assess your symptoms and determine what type of support may be appropriate.

Q: How do I get started with trauma and PTSD therapy?

A: Call or text (626) 639-8844 or schedule an appointment online. Our team will help connect you with a therapist based on your needs, preferences, and goals.

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Ready to get started?
Call us at (626) 639-8844 or book an appointment online. We’ll help you get started at a pace that feels safe, supportive, and manageable.
Call (626) 639-8844
Text (626) 639-8844
Book Appointment
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