Stacie Later, LCSW

Finding a therapist can feel overwhelming. When you’re carrying the layered wounds of Complex Trauma, it becomes a different ball game. You may wonder who to trust, worry you’re too much, or if healing is even possible.

No therapist can turn back time and change the past. However, a therapist can help you build a new relationship with yourself that encourages safety, clarity, and self-compassion. Not every therapist is trained to work in the depth and complexity of CPTSD. Knowing what to look for can help you find someone who truly sees you.

1. Trauma Focused, Not Only Trauma-Informed or Trauma-Aware

Many therapists say they work with trauma. The reality is few understand the nuances of long-term, relational trauma, especially during early formative years. Look for someone who understands nervous system regulation, attachment patterns, and the difference between PTSD and CPTSD. Therapists working with CPTSD need to understand dissociation, emotional overwhelm and the nervous system, self-concept, and chronic shame.

2. Respects Pacing and Consent

Healing CPTSD requires a sense of control. You’ve already lived through experiences where your voice was ignored or overpowered. The right therapist won’t rush you into trauma processing, and they’ll meet you at your own healing pace. They will check in often, offer choice, and help you learn to notice what safety feels like in your own body before moving deeper.

3. Recognizes Your Symptoms as Adaptive Survival Strategies

An appropriately trained therapist will recognize that your patterns, whether fawning, freezing, numbing, or disconnecting, once served a purpose. These strategies helped you survive when you had no other options. A therapist dedicated to working with Complex Trauma won’t pathologize your pain. They will help you understand it, honor it, and gently shift from it when you’re ready.

4. Uses Modalities That Work with the Whole System

CPTSD isn’t held in only explicit memory. It lives in the body, emotions, beliefs, and relationships. Look for someone trained in approaches that access more than thoughts, emotions and behaviors. The use of a combination of therapies for working with CPTSD is best because there’s so many layers that need to be worked on. A mixture of modalities like Internal Family Systems (IFS), Coherence Therapy, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), Critical Memory Integration (CMI), Eye Movements Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), Equine Therapy and somatic practices.

5. Feels Safe to Your System

The therapeutic relationship matters most, and you get to decide for yourself whether working with a certain someone is safe to you. You don’t need to feel totally comfortable right away, it’s normal to give relationships time to establish. You do need to feel respected, not judged, and allowed to take up space. Therapy for CPTSD isn’t about being “fixed.” It’s about being met where you are, learning and unlearning, addressing the nervous system and becoming present with yourself in a way that was likely never modeled to you. The right therapist for you is going to not only support your healing from the past; they will also help you nurture your present and future.