Healing from Sexual Trauma at Your Pace
Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.
- Gabor Maté
Healing from Sexual Trauma
Sexual trauma affects not just memory, but the body, the nervous system, and the very foundation of how safe we feel in the world. It can shape how you experience intimacy, trust, pleasure, and your relationship with your own body. Whether your experiences occurred recently or decades ago, whether they were a single event or repeated over time, healing is possible.
Many survivors describe feeling disconnected from their bodies, struggling with trust, or finding that intimacy triggers overwhelming emotions or shutdown. You might experience flashbacks, hypervigilance, or numbness. You may feel shame, even though what happened was never your fault. These responses are your nervous system's way of trying to protect you.
Therapy offers a space to process what happened, reconnect with your body at your own pace, and gently rebuild your capacity for safety, trust, and intimacy. The work we do together creates the conditions for your nervous system to settle, and supports you in reclaiming agency over your life and sexuality.
A Trauma-Informed Approach
Trauma-informed therapy recognises that healing happens when you feel safe — in your body, in your relationships, and in the therapeutic space itself. As both a psychologist and sexologist, I bring specialised training in trauma work and an understanding of how sexual trauma uniquely affects sexuality, intimacy, and embodiment.
I work with evidence-based approaches including EMDR, somatic practices, parts work, and nervous system awareness. These methods help process trauma without requiring you to verbally recount every detail. The work honours the wisdom of your body and the protective strategies you developed to survive.
Together, we focus on:
Establishing safety and trust in the therapeutic relationship
Understanding how trauma affects your nervous system and body
Developing tools for grounding and regulation when you feel overwhelmed
Processing traumatic experiences when you feel ready
Reconnecting with your body through gentle, somatic awareness
Rebuilding capacity for intimacy, pleasure, and trust
Addressing trauma's impact on your sexuality and relationships
Healing is not linear. Some days will feel easier than others. The pace is always yours, and you remain in control of what we explore.
Understanding Trauma’s Impact
Your Nervous System
Sexual trauma often dysregulates the nervous system, leaving you stuck in states of hypervigilance (constant alertness, anxiety, difficulty relaxing) or shutdown (numbness, disconnection, depression). You might oscillate between the two, never quite feeling settled.
These aren't conscious choices, they're automatic protective responses. Your nervous system is trying to keep you safe, even when the danger has passed. Part of healing involves gently teaching your body that it's possible to feel safe again.
We work with nervous system awareness and regulation practices including breathwork, grounding techniques, and somatic tools that help you recognise your states and find your way back to calm and connection.
Your Body
Trauma lives in the body. You might experience chronic tension, pain, or a sense of disconnection from physical sensation. Many women describe feeling like they're watching their lives from the outside, or that their body doesn't quite belong to them.
Healing involves slowly, gently reconnecting with embodied experience. We work to help you learn to listen to your body's signals, and cultivate a compassionate relationship with your physical self.
We use somatic approaches that work directly with the body's experience of trauma, helping you process what's stored there and reclaim a sense of home in your own skin.
Your Sexuality and Intimacy
Sexual trauma can profoundly affect desire, arousal, pleasure, and your capacity to be present during intimacy. You might experience pain during sex, shutdown or dissociation, intrusive memories, or difficulty trusting partners. Touch that should feel pleasurable might trigger fear or numbness instead.
These responses make complete sense given what you've experienced. Healing involves understanding how trauma affects sexuality, working at a pace that feels safe, and gradually exploring what intimacy and pleasure might look like when you're in control.
This work integrates trauma therapy with sexological knowledge, honouring that sexual healing requires both safety and a gentle reconnection with erotic experience.
Your Relationships
Trauma often affects your capacity for trust, vulnerability, and closeness with others. You might struggle with boundaries, either rigid or porous, or find yourself repeating patterns that don't serve you. Intimacy can feel both deeply desired and terrifying.
We explore these relational patterns with compassion, recognising them as protective responses that once helped you survive. Together, we work on developing healthier ways of relating, communicating your needs, and building relationships where you feel safe and respected.
Common Experiences After Trauma
While every person's experience is unique, women often describe:
Shame, guilt, or feeling responsible for what happened (even though it wasn't your fault)
Flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or nightmares
Difficulty trusting others or letting people close
Hypervigilance or constant alertness to danger
Numbness, dissociation, or feeling disconnected from your body
Difficulty with intimacy, touch, or sexual experiences
Anxiety, depression, or emotional overwhelm
Physical symptoms like tension, pain, or sleep disturbances
Anger, irritability, or emotional reactivity
Avoidance of people, places, or experiences that remind you of the trauma
These responses are normal reactions to abnormal experiences. This is your nervous system is doing its best to protect you. With support, these patterns can shift.
The Healing Process
Healing from sexual trauma isn't about returning to who you were before. It's about integrating what happened, reclaiming your sense of self, and building capacity for safety, connection, and aliveness.
Creating Safety
The foundation of trauma work is safety. We move slowly, building trust in the therapeutic relationship and ensuring you feel emotionally and physically safe in session. You're always in control of what we discuss and how deep we go.
Processing Trauma
When you feel ready, we work with approaches like EMDR to process traumatic memories. These methods help your brain and body integrate what happened without requiring you to verbally relive every detail. The goal is to reduce the emotional intensity of memories and their hold on your present life.
Reconnecting with Your Body
Gently, at your pace, we work on rebuilding connection with your body through somatic awareness, mindfulness, and practices that help you feel grounded and present. This might include breathwork, gentle movement, or simply learning to notice sensation without judgment.
Reclaiming Sexuality
For many women, reclaiming sexuality and pleasure is a profound act of healing. This work is optional and only happens when you feel ready. It might involve exploring what safe touch feels like, reconnecting with desire, or working through specific sexual difficulties that trauma created.
Rebuilding Relationships
As you heal, your capacity for trust and intimacy often expands. We work on communication skills, boundary-setting, and developing relationships that feel nourishing and safe.
Complex Trauma
When trauma occurred in childhood, happened repeatedly, or involved people who were supposed to care for you, the impact can be particularly profound. Complex trauma affects your core sense of safety, worthiness, and your ability to trust others.
Healing complex trauma takes time and requires working with attachment patterns, core beliefs about yourself, and the deep relational wounds trauma created. This work is possible, and with the right support, you can develop the internal safety and secure attachment that trauma disrupted.
Why This Work Matters to Me
Too often, survivors of sexual trauma are met with dismissal, disbelief, or pressure to "move on" before they've had space to heal. The impact of sexual trauma, particularly on the body and sexuality, is frequently minimised or misunderstood, even by well-meaning professionals.
I'm deeply committed to holding space for these experiences with the care and expertise you deserve. Healing from sexual trauma is possible, and you deserve support that honours your pace, respects your autonomy, and believes in your capacity to reclaim your life and your body.
What happened to you was not your fault. And you don't have to carry it alone.
Contact Jen to discuss trauma-informed therapy and how this work might support your healing journey.
Areas of Interest
Learn more about sexual desire, sexual pain, or explore general sex therapy to understand how trauma intersects with these areas.