Trauma Recovery Therapy in Boston
Support, Safety, Insight, Healing, & Restoration
Trauma takes many forms, and not all of them fit neatly into diagnostic categories. At Kinsey & Associates, we offer trauma recovery therapy that is thoughtful, relational, and grounded in a deep understanding of how emotional wounds shape the mind, the body, and relationships over time.
Our work is designed for people who are living with the ongoing effects of trauma, whether those effects are clearly linked to a specific event or feel harder to name and understand. We focus less on labels and more on helping clients make sense of what they have lived through and how it continues to affect them.
How We Understand Trauma
Clinicians often distinguish between acute trauma and chronic trauma. Acute trauma typically involves a discrete, overwhelming event such as an accident, injury, combat exposure, or a life-threatening situation. Chronic trauma develops over time and often involves repeated emotional injury, neglect, or violation within relationships or environments where safety should have existed.
We also recognize forms of trauma that are not always formally captured by diagnostic systems. What is often described as complex or developmental trauma may arise from emotional wounding that is deeply destabilizing and pervasive. These wounds can affect identity, self-worth, intimacy, and the ability to feel safe with others. While the threat may not have been physical, the psychological impact can resemble classic post-traumatic stress.
Rather than emphasizing diagnosis, we work with clients to identify the harm they feel and to understand how core emotional wounds continue to shape their reactions, relationships, and sense of self.
Our Approach to Trauma Recovery
Our trauma work is grounded in relational and psychodynamic traditions, informed by cognitive processing therapy and guided by the framework outlined by Judith Herman in Trauma and Recovery. Her work provides a clear and validated structure for treatment that emphasizes safety, meaning-making, and reconnection.
A hallmark of effective trauma recovery is experiential learning. Insight alone is rarely enough. We facilitate safe, contained experiential healing experiences that allow clients to feel, test, and internalize new ways of being rather than only understanding them intellectually.
Over time, this work restores choice. Trauma narrows perception and reaction, often leaving people feeling trapped in responses they do not consciously choose. Effective trauma recovery expands awareness and flexibility, allowing clients to respond to their inner and outer worlds with intention rather than reflex.
We begin by establishing safety and trust. This often includes helping clients stabilize their daily lives, strengthen emotional regulation, and develop internal and external supports before engaging in deeper trauma work. Trauma recovery is not rushed.
As therapy progresses, we work psychologically with memory, meaning, and emotion. This may include revisiting and reorganizing painful memories, generating insight into the nature of the original wound, and understanding why certain situations or relationships continue to trigger overwhelming responses.
For many people with complex trauma, confusion is a central struggle. Clients may feel flooded, reactive, or shut down in situations that appear safe or loving. Therapy helps clarify what is happening and why, creating the insight necessary for real choice rather than automatic reaction.
Our clinicians draw from a range of approaches depending on the client and the phase of treatment. These may include relational talk therapy, psychodynamic work, guided imagery, cognitive and cognitive processing therapies, somatic awareness, and other evidence-based trauma-informed methods.
Frequently Asked Questions
About
Trauma Recovery
-
Trauma often shows up indirectly. People may experience emotional overwhelm, numbness, anxiety, difficulty trusting, problems in relationships, or strong reactions that feel out of proportion to the present situation. You do not need to remember everything clearly or identify a single event for trauma therapy to be helpful.
-
Uncertainty about readiness is common. Part of trauma-informed care involves helping clients assess readiness and build capacity before engaging in deeper work. Consultation and early therapy sessions often focus on preparation rather than immediate trauma processing.
-
No. Trauma recovery is not about repeated exposure or forced retelling. We work carefully and collaboratively, with attention to pacing, consent, and emotional safety. Any work with memory or past experience is guided by the client and shaped by what supports healing rather than overwhelm.
-
Trauma recovery does not follow a fixed timeline. The length of therapy depends on the nature of the trauma, current supports, life circumstances, and individual goals. Some people engage in focused trauma work after a period of preparation, while others work more gradually over time.
-
Yes. Complex and developmental trauma are central areas of our work. We help clients understand how early relational experiences shape emotional regulation, identity, and patterns in adult relationships.
Is Trauma Therapy Right for Me?
Trauma therapy is most effective when people are willing and able to engage in deep psychological work. This does not mean you need to feel stable, confident, or certain before starting. It does mean being open to reflection, emotional exploration, and gradual change.
Some people come to trauma therapy knowing they are ready for this kind of work. Others sense that something is unresolved but are unsure whether they are prepared to go deeper. Both positions are welcome.
An important part of our work involves helping clients prepare for trauma recovery. This may include strengthening emotional regulation, improving stability in daily life, or clarifying goals and expectations before engaging in more intensive trauma-focused work.
We also offer consultation to help determine whether trauma therapy is the right next step for you. Together, we can assess readiness, pacing, and fit, and decide whether to begin trauma work now or focus first on preparation and support.
Trauma recovery is not about pushing through pain. It is about developing the capacity to face what has been overwhelming in ways that restore agency, choice, and self-trust.
Our relational approach to trauma recovery is a shared clinical orientation across our practice, shaped by decades of focused training and clinical experience working with all forms of trauma.
Dissociation and Trauma
Many people living with complex or developmental trauma experience dissociation. This can include feeling detached from the body, emotionally numb, spaced out, or disconnected from memory or sensation. Dissociation is not a failure of therapy or willpower. It is a protective response that once helped the mind manage overwhelming experience.
Trauma therapy helps clients recognize dissociative patterns, understand when and why they arise, and gradually build the capacity to stay present with emotion and bodily experience. This work is paced carefully and integrated with grounding and regulation skills.
Relational Trauma
Some of the most impactful trauma occurs within relationships rather than through isolated events. Relational trauma can develop in families, caregiving relationships, partnerships, or communities where safety, attunement, or trust were unreliable.
These wounds often show up in adult relationships through fear of closeness, difficulty trusting, intense reactions to conflict, or a persistent sense of being unseen or unsafe. Therapy provides a relational environment where these patterns can be understood and gently revised through new experience.
Working With Sex-Related Trauma
We have particular experience treating sex-related trauma, including the long-term psychological effects of sexual violation and abuse. We are not a crisis clinic and do not provide immediate post-assault care. Our work is focused on longer-term recovery.
We approach different forms of sexual trauma with appropriate clinical distinction. Recovery following violent sexual assault often centers on restoring a sense of safety, bodily autonomy, and trust, while addressing fear-based trauma responses and disrupted boundaries. Work with survivors of childhood sexual abuse often involves addressing developmental trauma, confusion around desire and attachment, and the lasting impact of betrayal within formative relationships.
Judith Herman’s work on trauma and childhood sexual abuse strongly informs our approach. We attend carefully to issues of power, secrecy, shame, and dissociation that frequently accompany sexual trauma.
When appropriate, sex therapy becomes an important part of later-stage trauma recovery. For many clients, the final phase of healing involves reconnecting with the body’s capacity for pleasure, choice, and intimacy. This work is slow, contained, and led entirely by the client. The goal is not performance, but agency and the reclamation of sexual connection as something safe and self-directed.
-
![]()
Lee Kinsey
PhD, LPC-S, LMHC, Certified Sex Therapist
Dr. Kinsey combines modern sex therapy practices with expert relationship counseling.
-
![]()
Ellen Wood
MS, LMHC
Ellen works with adults and relationships, individually and in groups.
-
![Eric Rosin]()
Eric Rosin
MA, Doctoral Student Working Toward Licensure
Eric works with adolescents, adults, and relationships.
-
![]()
Lucy Morgan
MSW, LICSW
Lucy works with adults and relationships, particularly young adults and queer couples.
-
![]()
Garrett Beaman
MA, Counselor working toward Licensure
Garrett works with adults and relationships, individually and in groups.
-
![]()
Maddy Hudson
Practice Administrator
Maddy helps clients pair with the right therapist and file out-of-network claims with insurance.
Trauma Therapy at Kinsey & Associates in Boston
Trauma recovery is a core area of focus at Kinsey & Associates. Dr. Lee Kinsey specializes in trauma treatment with an emphasis on complex and developmental trauma, relational wounds, dissociation, and sex-related trauma. Lucy Morgan, Eric Rosin, Ellen Wood, and Garrett Beaman also bring extensive experience working with trauma across individual and relational contexts.
Our clinicians work collaboratively from a shared clinical framework while attending closely to the unique needs, pacing, and readiness of each client.
Kinsey & Associates is a group counseling practice in Boston offering trauma recovery therapy for adults and couples. We also provide group therapy for those who need it. We provide in-person sessions in Boston and telehealth throughout Massachusetts, depending on availability.
Trauma recovery is a process of rebuilding safety, meaning, and connection. If you are living with the ongoing effects of trauma and are seeking thoughtful, relational care that values depth, pacing, and experiential healing, we invite you to reach out for a consultation to determine whether our approach is a good fit.
Support for Partners and Loved Ones
Trauma rarely affects only one person. Partners and loved ones often feel confused, helpless, or unsure how to respond when someone they care about is living with the effects of trauma.
We work with partners and loved ones in several ways. This may include individual therapy to help them understand trauma responses, couples or relational work when appropriate, and guidance around boundaries, communication, and emotional support.
Supporting someone through trauma recovery can be challenging. Therapy can help partners make sense of what they are seeing, reduce misinterpretation or self-blame, and find ways to stay connected without taking on responsibility for the healing process.
Trauma recovery is ultimately the client’s work, but supportive relationships can play an important role when they are informed, boundaried, and grounded in compassion.