Trauma Therapy in Ann Arbor

When the past is over, but your nervous system hasn’t gotten the message.

Trauma doesn’t always look like flashbacks or a single terrible event. Sometimes it looks like being perpetually braced for what comes next. Going blank during conflict. Knowing intellectually that you’re safe while your body insists otherwise. Losing access to words, memories, or parts of yourself when things get intense. Or functioning extraordinarily well until, suddenly, you can’t.

At Forest Ferns, we work with trauma in all of its complexity, including experiences that don’t fit neatly into a diagnostic box.

Trauma can leave a lot of different footprints

Your body reacts before you do

Hypervigilance, shutdown, panic, tension, sleep problems, or feeling constantly activated.

Relationships feel disproportionately intense

Conflict, rejection, closeness, or uncertainty can trigger reactions that seem much bigger than the present moment.

You disconnect

Numbness, dissociation, going blank, feeling unreal, or having trouble accessing memories or emotions.

You’re extremely capable, until you aren’t

Some people survive by becoming exceptionally competent, independent, productive, or attuned to everyone else. That can work remarkably well, until the system carrying all of it gets overloaded.

Trauma therapy shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all

You don’t have to tell the whole story before therapy can help.

Good trauma therapy isn’t about forcing disclosure, excavating every memory, or repeatedly reliving what happened.

Our therapists draw from different trauma-informed approaches depending on the person in front of us. That may include work focused on the nervous system and body, attachment and relationships, memory processing, dissociation, meaning-making, practical coping, or simply building enough safety and trust to approach difficult material differently.

Some people want structured trauma treatment. Others need therapy that can hold trauma without making trauma the center of every session. Both belong here.

Who we work with

Complex and developmental trauma

Including childhood experiences whose effects followed you into adulthood.

PTSD and traumatic experiences

After accidents, violence, loss, medical experiences, difficult relationships, or other overwhelming events.

Dissociation

Including feeling detached, unreal, blank, fragmented, or disconnected from parts of your experience.

And more

Medical trauma, chronic illness and disability. LGBTQ+ and identity-related experiences. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, CODAs and families. Trauma in relationships and families.

You do not need to know whether what happened to you “counts” as trauma before contacting us. Figuring out how your experiences connect to what is happening now can be part of the work.

Find someone who fits

The relationship matters.

Forest Ferns is a group practice, which means you don’t have to choose between finding a therapist who understands trauma and finding a therapist you actually connect with.

Our clinicians have different personalities, identities, specialties, approaches, and schedules. You can browse our therapists and schedule directly, or tell us a little about what you’re looking for and we’ll help you figure out who may be a good fit.