Trauma Therapy in Laguna Beach

Trauma therapy at Third Street Counseling begins with a free consult to understand what you need and whether we are the right fit. Michele Hall-Preston, LMFT, offers EMDR, and Tallie Gigi, AMFT, works with trauma at a pace you control. Neither requires you to retell your story in detail unless you want to.

Trauma can come from a single event or a long period of stress, and it does not always look the way people expect. It can show up as intrusive memories, trouble sleeping, hypervigilance, emotional numbness, or a body that reacts before the mind catches up. Some people feel stuck in the past, while others feel disconnected from their own emotions or body.

For some clients, EMDR offers a structured way to help distressing memories lose their charge. You can learn more about how EMDR works on our EMDR therapy page. For others, a steady therapeutic relationship is the foundation, and the work happens through conversation and trust built over time.

Trauma therapy is not about reliving the worst moments of your life. It is about helping your brain and body process what happened so it becomes part of your story rather than something that is still happening to you. Your clinician will walk you through each step before it happens, and you set the pace.

Many people who seek trauma therapy also experience anxiety or depression. The three are closely connected, and the therapy here is comfortable working with all of them. If anxiety is a primary concern, our anxiety therapy page has more detail.

For teens who have experienced trauma, Tallie Gigi works at a pace that respects where they are. Parent involvement is part of the process, calibrated to the teen's age and needs. You can read more about our approach to teen therapy on its dedicated page.