Therapy Group of Charleston
Something happened, and part of you is still bracing for it. Maybe it was one terrible event, or maybe it was years of living with something no one should have to. Either way, it can show up now as trouble sleeping, a short fuse, feeling on guard in safe places, or a numbness that makes it hard to feel close to anyone.
Reminders can bring it all back: a sound, a smell, an anniversary, a tone of voice, a news story. Trauma can also surface months or years later, often during a stressful stretch or a big life change. These reactions come from a nervous system that learned to expect danger, and with the right help, they can ease.
Therapy Group of Charleston offers trauma therapy and PTSD treatment for adults at our Mount Pleasant office and by secure video anywhere in South Carolina, for clients from Charleston, North Charleston, Summerville, and across the Lowcountry. Our Mount Pleasant trauma therapist also sees teens 13 and older, alongside their parents.
You don’t need a PTSD diagnosis, or a story that sounds dramatic enough, to start. If something from your past is still shaping how you live now, that’s reason enough to reach out.
People often begin a first session by saying that others have had it worse. That may be true, and it doesn’t make what you’ve been carrying any lighter. What matters is how the experience is affecting you now.
What Is Trauma-Focused Therapy?
Trauma-focused therapy helps you make sense of what happened, calm the alarm system it left behind, and loosen the hold that memories and reminders have on your daily life. You and your therapist set the pace together, and you stay in control of what you talk about and when.
Most trauma therapy works toward four goals:
- Feeling safer now. Skills for grounding yourself, sleeping better, and settling your body when something sets off the alarm.
- Making sense of what happened. Putting the experience into words and into context, so it feels less like it’s still happening.
- Loosening old conclusions. Trauma often leaves beliefs behind, like “It was my fault” or “No one can be trusted.” Therapy gives you room to question them.
- Reconnecting. Rebuilding trust with the people who matter and returning to the parts of life you’ve been avoiding.
Treatment guidelines recommend trauma-focused approaches as the first choice for PTSD, and several of them work well. The relationship with your therapist matters too, especially when trust is part of what trauma took from you.
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Types of Trauma We Treat
Trauma can come from a single event or from something that went on for years. These are the experiences adults most often bring to us.
A single frightening event
A car accident, an assault, a medical emergency, a hurricane or fire. One event can leave nightmares, jumpiness, and a strong pull to avoid anything that brings it back.
Childhood and complex trauma
Neglect, abuse, or growing up around chaos, addiction, or violence. Trauma that lasted a long time often shapes how you see yourself and how safe relationships feel as an adult.
Relational trauma
Abuse, control, or a deep betrayal by a partner or someone close to you. When the harm comes from someone you trusted, it can shake your sense of what’s real and who’s safe.
Traumatic loss
A death that was sudden, violent, or came far too soon. Grief and trauma can tangle together, and both deserve attention.
Grief and loss counseling →Medical and birth trauma
A frightening diagnosis, a hospital stay, a difficult birth, or a pregnancy loss. Medical experiences can be traumatic even when everyone around you says it went fine.
Trauma from your work
Healthcare workers, first responders, and others who see hard things for a living. Repeated exposure adds up, and at first it often looks like burnout.
Not sure if what happened counts as trauma?
You don't need to sort that out before reaching out. Tell us what you're noticing, and we'll talk through where to begin.
Trauma, Relationships, and Couples Therapy
Trauma affects the people closest to you, too. At home it can show up as irritability, pulling away from intimacy, arguments that escalate fast, or a partner who feels shut out and doesn’t know why.
Jan Stone Allen is a marriage and family therapist and can work with you one-on-one or, when it would help, bring a partner or family member into a session. In a review of 19 studies, both individual and couple-based therapy for PTSD reduced symptoms and improved relationships.
With a Partner
A partner may see anger or distance without knowing what’s underneath. A joint session can help you both understand the reaction and respond to it differently.
As a Parent
Trauma can make ordinary parenting moments feel overwhelming, especially if your own childhood was hard. Therapy helps you parent the way you intend to, even when old reactions pull the other way.
With Your Family
Some families never talk about what happened. Naming it carefully, at a pace everyone can manage, can ease a tension the whole family feels.
Family therapy →
Is Trauma Therapy Right for You?
Trauma therapy may help if:
What to know
- About a quarter of PTSD cases are delayed, with symptoms first appearing months or more after the event.
- In a review of 71 studies, people who had been through trauma were 2.7 times as likely to have conditions such as chronic pain, fibromyalgia, or irritable bowel syndrome.
- As trauma-focused therapy eases PTSD symptoms, relationships with other people tend to improve along with them.
If you’re in danger or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at any hour, or call 911. If someone at home is hurting you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available around the clock at 1-800-799-7233.
How We Treat Trauma and PTSD
We build a personalized treatment plan around what happened, what you’re living with now, and a pace that feels manageable. Most plans include three kinds of work.
Stabilization and Safety
Before going into hard memories, you build ways to steady yourself: grounding skills, better sleep, and tools to calm your body when a reminder hits.
Processing the Trauma
When you’re ready, you and your therapist work through the experience and the beliefs it left behind, one manageable piece at a time.
Relationships and Family
As a family therapist, Jan Stone Allen pays attention to how trauma lives in your relationships and can involve a partner or family member when that helps.
Meet Our Therapist →
What to Expect in Trauma Therapy
Getting Oriented
Your first session covers what brings you in, how things are affecting you now, and what you’d like to change. You won’t be asked to tell the whole story before you’re ready.
Building Safety
You learn practical ways to settle your body and mind, and you and your therapist agree on a pace for the work ahead.
Working Through It
With those skills in place, you gradually approach what you’ve been avoiding: memories, reminders, and the conclusions trauma left behind.
Moving Forward
Reminders lose their charge, and you leave with a plan for hard days, anniversaries, and stressful stretches. Sessions become less frequent as life steadies.
Trauma Therapy in Charleston, SC
A family therapist who sees the whole picture
Jan Stone Allen is a licensed marriage and family therapist, an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, and a co-founder of our practice. Family systems training means looking at trauma alongside your relationships, your family history, and the pressures of daily life, which helps when trauma is tangled up with a marriage or partnership.
Care at a pace you control
Trauma therapy should never feel like being pushed. You decide what to share and when, and you can mix in-person and video sessions for the weeks when leaving the house feels like too much. We also file your insurance claims for you.
In person in Mount Pleasant or online
We see clients at 913 Bowman Road in Mount Pleasant, with parking on site, and by secure video anywhere in South Carolina. Clients come from Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island, downtown Charleston, Summerville, and across the Lowcountry.
One thing we often teach early: when a reminder hits, slowly name five things you can see in the room. Bringing your attention to the present helps tell your body that the danger is over.
Your Mount Pleasant Trauma Therapist
Jan Stone Allen treats trauma in person in Mount Pleasant and by secure video anywhere in South Carolina, working with adults, couples, families, and teens 13 and older.
Looking for more options, including therapists who work online? See our full Charleston directory.