Understanding Different Types of Trauma Therapy
Author: Dr. Mary Perleoni, Ph.D., LMHC
Published: February 26, 2026
Searching for trauma therapy often comes after a long time of trying to manage things on your own. You may have gotten pretty good at it. And yet here you are.
That's not a small thing, not because it took courage, but because it usually means something has shifted. Maybe the coping strategies that worked for years have started to cost too much. Maybe a relationship or a life transition has surfaced something you thought you'd moved past. Maybe you're simply tired of carrying it.
Our therapists in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota work with people at all of those points. We offer evidence-based trauma counseling for individuals, couples, and families, and we take the time to understand what's actually going on before deciding how to approach it. This page is a starting point for understanding your options.
What Is a Trauma-Informed Therapist?
Not every therapist is equally equipped to treat trauma. A trauma-informed therapist is one who has specialized training in how trauma affects the brain, the nervous system, and day-to-day functioning, and who structures their clinical approach around that knowledge. This means every aspect of care, from the way sessions are paced to the language used, is designed to create safety and reduce the risk of re-traumatization.
A trauma-informed therapist understands that what can look like "difficult behavior" from the outside is often our nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do to survive. Rather than viewing these normal responses as illnesses, a trauma-informed approach asks: "Where did your nervous system learn this response?" instead of "What's wrong with you?"
All of the clinicians at IBW across our Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota locations are trained in trauma-informed care. Many hold advanced certifications in specific trauma modalities, including EMDR, Cognitive Processing Therapy, TF-CBT, among many others. When you work with one of our therapists, you can expect to be met with understanding, not judgment, from the very first conversation.
Benefits of Trauma Counseling
Reaching out for trauma counseling is one of the most meaningful investments you can make in your quality of life. Many people wait years before seeking help, sometimes because they don't feel like their own traumatic experience "counts" as trauma, or because they've tried to manage on their own. The truth is that untreated trauma lives in our body and expands over time, often shaping our relationships, self-worth, physical health, and daily functioning.
Working with a trauma therapist can help you:
Reduce or eliminate PTSD symptoms, including intrusive memories and nightmares
Break the cycle of avoidance that keeps trauma symptoms alive
Rebuild a sense of safety in your body and in your relationships
Release shame and self-blame that often develops after trauma
Reconnect with relationships and activities that bring meaning
Feel genuinely hopeful and optimism about the future
7 Types of Trauma Therapy to Consider
One of the most important things to understand when searching for trauma therapy near you is that there is no single "right" approach. Different modalities work best for different people, different trauma types, and different phases of healing. Below are seven of the most evidence-based treatments, and what makes each one distinct.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
EMDR is one of the most searched-for trauma therapies by name, and for good reason. EMDR has helped millions of people process traumatic memories that felt too overwhelming, fragmented, or raw to address through traditional talk therapy alone.
EMDR works by engaging the brain's natural memory consolidation system during targeted bilateral stimulation, through guided eye movements, tapping, or tones. By briefly holding a traumatic memory in mind while the brain is simultaneously engaged in this bilateral processing, EMDR appears to allow the memory to be "digested" and stored in a way that no longer triggers an acute stress response. Many clients describe the shift as a memory that used to feel like it was happening right now, becoming something that happened in the past.
EMDR can also be very powerful for clients who have difficulty talking about their trauma directly (specifically for those who have tried other approaches without the results they hoped for). This approach can be transformative for those who have experienced complex trauma, childhood experiences, and relational trauma within couples.
Exposure Therapy
Exposure therapy is one of the most well-researched treatments in all of mental health care, and it forms the backbone of several specialized trauma protocols. The core insight behind exposure therapy is avoidance keeps fear alive. When we repeatedly avoid the people, places, thoughts, or feelings that remind us of trauma, the brain never gets the opportunity to learn that those reminders are no longer dangerous.
A trauma therapist trained in exposure therapy will guide you through a gradual, carefully paced process of approaching what you've been avoiding, in a safe, controlled environment. Over time, the anxiety response diminishes and the hold that trauma related triggers have on your daily life begins to loosen. This is not about "flooding" you with fear, but about systematically retraining your nervous system at a pace you can manage.
CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy)
Cognitive Processing Therapy is one of the most recommended treatments specifically for PTSD (including by both the American Psychological Association and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs). CPT is a structured and short-term therapy, typically taking 12 sessions, which targets the unhelpful beliefs trauma survivors often carry long after the traumatic event itself has ended.
CPT is built on the observation that trauma often gets "stuck" in the mind because of how it challenges our core beliefs about safety, trust, power, esteem, and intimacy. Thoughts like "It was my fault," "I should have done something," or "I can never trust anyone again" are not signs of weakness, they are predictable responses to overwhelming experiences. CPT helps you examine these beliefs with compassionate curiosity and replace them with more accurate, balanced perspectives.
PE (Prolonged Exposure)
Prolonged Exposure (PE) is the gold-standard of PTSD treatment developed at the University of Pennsylvania and widely used with trauma survivors across the full spectrum of trauma types. If you're looking for a trauma therapy which uses structured, research-backed methods, PE is one of the most clinically rigorous options available.
PE combines two complementary components:
Imaginal exposure involves revisiting the traumatic memory through detailed verbal recounting in session, recordings that clients listen to between appointments to continue the processing work.
In vivo exposure involves gradually approaching real-world situations that have been avoided due to trauma-related fear.
Together, these two tools help the brain learn that the memory is survivable and that avoided situations can be safely navigated. PE is typically completed in 8–15 sessions and has one of the strongest efficacy records of any trauma treatment in the literature.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
Accelerated Resolution Therapy is a relatively newer but rapidly growing trauma modality, and one that IBW is particularly proud to offer across our Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota locations. ART uses guided eye movements, similar in some ways to EMDR, but adds a distinctive element called "voluntary image replacement". This image replacement is a process that allows clients to actively transform the distressing images associated with a traumatic memory into something neutral or even positive.
What makes ART notable is its speed. Many clients experience significant relief within just 1–5 sessions, without needing to verbally recount the details of what happened in depth. For clients who feel hesitant about reliving the details or specifics of their trauma, or who have tried other therapies without the progress they hoped for, ART can be a transformative. Research supports its effectiveness for PTSD, depression, anxiety, grief, and relationship trauma, and it is recognized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as an evidence-based treatment.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most extensively studied forms of psychotherapy, and its trauma-specific adaptations are among the most effective tools in a trauma counselor's toolkit.
For adults, CBT for trauma targets the cycle of unhelpful thoughts and avoidance behaviors that maintain PTSD symptoms over time. A trauma-informed CBT therapist will help you identify the specific thought distortions trauma has introduced, about yourself, your safety, your worth, and your future. It focuses on developing skills to interrupt and reframe the trauma narrative. CBT also emphasizes building practical coping tools for managing the day-to-day impact of trauma on your mood, relationships, and functioning.
Learn more about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
TF-CBT (Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is the gold-standard trauma treatment for children and adolescents who have experienced trauma involving abuse, neglect, domestic violence, traumatic loss, or adverse childhood experiences. It is one of the most extensively researched child trauma treatments in existence, with strong evidence across cultures, trauma types, and age groups.
What sets TF-CBT apart is its deliberate inclusion of caregivers. Parents and trusted adults are active participants in the treatment process, attending their own sessions alongside the child's and learning the same skills so they can reinforce healing at home. This family-centered structure is particularly important because a child's recovery is deeply shaped by the emotional safety and responsiveness of the adults around them.
TF-CBT works through a structured series of components — coping skills, trauma narrative development, and cognitive processing — paced carefully to the child's developmental level and readiness. Our therapists in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota who specialize in child and adolescent trauma use TF-CBT as a primary framework, and often integrate it with play therapy and other developmentally appropriate tools for younger clients.
Understanding Relational Trauma & Treatment
Not all trauma comes from a single defining moment. Relational trauma develops inside relationships, often with a parent who was unpredictable or emotionally absent, a partner who cycled between cruelty and affection, or a dynamic where love felt conditional or came with a cost. Because it unfolds gradually and within relationships that were supposed to feel safe, it often goes unnamed for years.
What makes relational trauma clinically distinct is how deeply it shapes attachment. The internalized beliefs and patterns that govern how we connect with others, how much closeness we can tolerate, and what we expect from the people we depend on. These patterns tend to persist long after the original relationship has ended, showing up as chronic anxiety in relationships, difficulty trusting even trustworthy people, a pull toward familiar but painful dynamics, or a quiet sense that something is wrong without being able to name it.
Read: Understanding Complex Relational Trauma & Healing Through Therapy
Evidence-Based Approaches for Treating Relational Trauma
Because relational trauma is rooted in how the mind and body learned to navigate unsafe connection, effective treatment works on multiple levels, not just the story of what happened, but the nervous system patterns and beliefs that formed around it.
EMDR is one of the most widely used and researched approaches for relational trauma. It is particularly effective when early relationships left behind fragmented, emotionally charged memories
Attachment-based therapy addresses the relational patterns themselves, the internalized models of connection that developed in early caregiving relationships and continue to shape adult intimacy. Rather than focusing primarily on specific memories, it works to build a new relational experience directly within the therapeutic relationship, offering a corrective foundation for how connection can feel.
Somatic therapy recognizes that relational trauma is not only stored as memory but as physical patterns, chronic tension, shutdown, or hyperactivation that lives in the body long after the relationship has ended.
CPT is particularly useful for clients whose relational trauma has produced deeply entrenched beliefs about themselves, that they are unworthy of love, that closeness is dangerous, or that they are responsible for what was done to them. CPT provides structured tools for examining and shifting those beliefs directly.
Additional Trauma Therapy Resources
If you are exploring trauma counseling near you, the following pages on our site offer deeper information on specific treatment approaches, therapist profiles, and how to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions About Trauma Therapy
How do I find a trauma therapist near me in Tampa, St. Petersburg, or Sarasota?
If you’re searching for a trauma therapist near you in Tampa Bay or Sarasota, start by looking for:
A licensed mental health professional (LMHC, LCSW, or Psychologist)
Specialized trauma training (EMDR, CPT, Prolonged Exposure, TF-CBT)
Experience treating PTSD, complex trauma, and relational trauma
Clear explanation of treatment approaches on their website
At It Begins Within Healing Center, we provide trauma therapy at:
Tampa Therapy Office – 550 N Reo Street, Suite 240
St. Petersburg Therapy Office – 12425 28th St N, Suite 100
Sarasota Therapy Office – 5939 Approach Rd
What is the difference between a trauma therapist and a regular therapist?
A trauma therapist has advanced training specifically in treating traumatic experiences and their neurological, emotional, and relational impact.
A general therapist may provide supportive counseling for stress, anxiety, or life transitions. A trauma specialist, however:
Uses evidence-based trauma treatments (EMDR, CPT, Prolonged Exposure)
Understands nervous system dysregulation and trauma triggers
Structures therapy to avoid re-traumatization
Works intentionally with attachment patterns and relational wounds
Trauma therapy is more structured, targeted, and clinically specialized than general supportive therapy.
What does trauma counseling typically involve?
Trauma counseling usually includes:
Assessment – Understanding your trauma history, symptoms, and goals
Stabilization – Building coping tools and emotional regulation skills
Processing – Working through traumatic memories using evidence-based approaches
Integration – Strengthening new beliefs, boundaries, and relational patterns
Sessions are typically 50–60 minutes weekly, though intensive formats are available.
The pace is collaborative. You are never pushed faster than you are ready.
How do I know if I need a trauma-informed therapist instead of general therapy?
You may benefit from trauma therapy if you experience:
Flashbacks or intrusive memories
Emotional reactivity that feels “bigger” than the present moment
Persistent trust issues
Anxiety or depression tied to past events
A sense that the past is still affecting your present relationships
Even if you’re unsure whether your experience “counts” as trauma, a trauma-informed therapist can help you clarify that safely.
Can I see a relationship trauma therapist if my partner won’t attend therapy?
Yes. Individual therapy for relational trauma can be highly effective — even if your partner does not participate.
In individual trauma therapy, you can:
Explore attachment patterns
Process betrayal or emotional wounds
Strengthen boundaries
Clarify your relational needs
Many clients begin with individual trauma therapy and later transition into couples therapy when both partners are ready.
Does trauma therapy work for relationship trauma?
Yes. Trauma therapy is especially effective for relational trauma, including:
Infidelity
Emotional neglect
Chronic conflict
Attachment injuries
Evidence-based modalities like EMDR and CPT can help reduce emotional triggers and reshape negative relational beliefs.
At IBWHC, our trauma therapists in Tampa Bay and Sarasota specialize in attachment-focused and relational trauma treatment.
Do you offer trauma therapy for children and teens near Tampa Bay?
Yes. We provide trauma therapy for children and adolescents in:
Tampa
St. Petersburg
Sarasota
Our child and teen specialists use:
Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT)
Play Therapy
EMDR adapted for younger clients
We work with families navigating abuse, divorce, grief, medical trauma, and other adverse childhood experiences.
What should I look for when choosing a trauma therapist?
When choosing a trauma therapist, look for:
Active Florida licensure (LMHC, LCSW, Psychologist)
Documented training in EMDR, CPT, Prolonged Exposure, or TF-CBT
Experience treating your specific trauma type
A therapist who feels safe, regulated, and non-judgmental
Credentials matter, but so does fit.
That’s why IBWHC offers free consultations before starting treatment.
Find a Trauma Therapist in Tampa, St. Petersburg, or Sarasota Today
You don't have to keep carrying the weight of what happened alone. Whether you're looking for a trauma therapist near you, searching for trauma counseling to finally address something you've been putting off, or trying to understand your options before taking the first step—we are glad you're here.
Schedule your free consultation or call (813) 538-0385. Our offices in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota are welcoming new clients, and same-day appointments are often available.
