Therapy for Relational Trauma in the Bay Area & throughout California
Break away from unhealthy relationship patterns and develop the healthy relationships you’ve always deserved.
As a child, you frequently saw your parents/caregivers fighting. You’d witness them from near and at a distance: yelling, screaming, and cursing at each other. Other times, you might have also witnessed these fights escalating into physical altercations. You have numerous memories of your parents/caregivers completely withdrawing from one another…giving each other the silent treatment or threatening to or literally leaving the home for an unknown amount of time.
It didn’t feel safe to be home…but when you were especially young, you didn’t have any other place to go. To cope then, you tried to do whatever you could to distract yourself…whether it was reading, writing, watching tv, or talking with anyone else about anything else.
You’ve become so good at these coping strategies that eventually you start feeling like nothing can hurt you; that you’ve somehow become invincible. No one can ever hurt you…or so you think…until you find yourself in relationships as an adult where you’re feeling hurt/neglected…because you are being hurt/neglected…again, now just in a different way.
You make sense. The coping strategies/adaptations you’ve made to survive make sense.
At the same time, some part of you knows that what you’ve been doing isn’t working anymore.
As someone who has experienced the enduring effects of unforeseeable mistreatment within close relationships and now, as a mental health therapist for relational trauma, I see you and I hear you. I would welcome the opportunity to support you in figuring out new ways of living that are sustainable and supportive for the relationships and life you want to foster.
How Therapy for Relational Trauma May Help
Through our work together, you may:
Clarify and address lingering effects/triggers from your past relationships on your current relationships.
Process the grief from missing out on certain experiences due to the neglect/mistreatment you experienced and witnessed within past relationships.
Reconnect and build upon your existing wisdom of how to develop and maintain healthier relationships.
Gain a better understanding of the intentions behind your current coping strategies/tendencies.
Feel more present and alive now, while also making integral space for your history.
Develop new, more sustainable coping strategies in response to fears/anxieties within relationships (i.e. of abandonment, violence, manipulation, neglect, etc.).
Develop/regain a sense of safety and trust within your relationships.
* Disclaimer: While I’ve given a glimpse into how therapy may help, I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of customizing the work I do with each client based on their unique needs/wants. Before we start any work together, we will discuss what your goals are and how we can work towards them.
Hi, I’m Gina. It’s an honor to meet you.
Gina Li, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)/ Therapist, California
I am a licensed mental health therapist based in the Bay Area, who specializes in helping young adults, Asian Americans, and caregivers throughout California, address the effects of intergenerational and relational trauma so that they can live truly more fulfilling lives. This can look like being more gentle with ourselves and others, while also setting boundaries as needed. It can also look like gaining greater self-awareness and true confidence. In summary, this looks like learning how to stay grounded in who we genuinely are and who we genuinely want to be.
