Holistic Trauma Therapy in Denver
For people who know the past is over, but still feel its impact in the body, emotions, relationships, and nervous system. Supporting healing through psychotherapy, parts work and Tai Yi.
When the Past Still Lives in the Present
Trauma is not only what happened.
It is also what your system had to do in order to survive what happened.
You may understand the event. You may know the story. You may even recognize the patterns that came from it. But that does not always mean your body, emotions, nervous system, or inner parts feel safe.
Trauma can live beneath words.
It may show up as anxiety, depression, shutdown, numbness, hypervigilance, people-pleasing, difficulty trusting, relationship patterns, anger, shame, body tension, or the feeling that part of you is still stuck in the past.
Our trauma therapy is not about forcing yourself to relive what happened. It is about listening to what your system is still carrying and supporting it in moving toward more safety, clarity, and integration.
You May Be Here Because…
- You understand your trauma, but still feel affected by it.
- You feel anxious, numb, reactive, or disconnected.
- Your body reacts before your mind can make sense of what is happening.
- You feel stuck in survival mode.
- You have difficulty trusting yourself, others, or life.
- You feel like part of you is still carrying fear, grief, shame, or anger.
- You have done therapy before but want something deeper than talking alone.
- You want trauma therapy that includes the mind, body & spirit along with the nervous system, inner parts.
Trauma Can Show Up in Many Ways
Trauma does not always look dramatic from the outside.
Sometimes it looks like functioning well while feeling disconnected inside.
Sometimes it looks like overthinking, overworking, or constantly staying in control.
Sometimes it looks like numbness, depression, exhaustion, or not knowing what you feel.
Sometimes it shows up in relationships as fear, avoidance, attachment, mistrust, conflict, or losing yourself around others.
Trauma may show up as:
Psychotherapy with Nick begins with what is most present in your life: anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship patterns, burnout, grief, spiritual questions, or the feeling that something deeper needs to shift. The work is grounded in conversation, reflection, emotional honesty, and insight, but it is not only about talking through the problem. Together, we look at how your patterns formed, what they are trying to protect, and how they continue to live in your thoughts, emotions, body, relationships, and nervous system.
My approach integrates traditional psychotherapy with IFS-informed parts work, somatic awareness, body-based energy work, and spiritual insight. This means we may explore the anxious part, the depressed part, the protective part, the part that shuts down, or the deeper self that is trying to emerge beneath survival patterns. The goal is to help you understand yourself more deeply, feel more grounded in your body, and begin creating change that reaches beyond insight alone.
Internal Family Systems, often called IFS or parts work, is an approach that understands the mind as having different “parts” or aspects of the self. One part of you may feel anxious, another part may feel depressed, another part may try to stay in control, and another part may shut down or avoid. Rather than seeing these parts as problems to get rid of, IFS helps us understand what each part is trying to protect, what it is carrying, and why it developed in the first place.
In therapy, parts work creates space to slow down and listen inward with curiosity instead of judgment. An anxious part may be trying to keep you safe. A depressed part may be holding grief, exhaustion, or hopelessness. A protective part may be trying to prevent rejection, failure, or pain. As these parts are understood and supported, the goal is to help you relate to yourself with more compassion, clarity, and groundedness so your inner system can begin to soften, heal, and move forward.
Life Energy Flow Tai Yi, often called Tai Yi, is a hands-on energy healing modality rooted in ancient Chinese healing principles. Similar to acupuncture, Tai Yi works with meridians, or energetic pathways, through which life energy, or chi, is understood to move. Instead of needles, Tai Yi uses specific hand placements, point sequences, and treatment patterns to support the flow of energy through the body and the deeper layers of a person’s experience.
Tai Yi works with the whole person — physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and energetic. In the Tai Yi model, there are 12 energetic bodies, each with its own meridian system. When these pathways become blocked, stagnant, weakened, or out of balance, a person may experience stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma patterns, relationship issues, spiritual disconnection, or feeling stuck. Tai Yi treatments are designed to support movement, balance, and integration across the mind, body, emotions, energy, and spirit.
Craniosacral is a gentle, body-based approach that brings attention to the subtle rhythms, tension patterns, and holding within the body. Rather than forcing the body to relax or release, this work slows the process down and listens for what the nervous system, tissues, and body are carrying.
It can be especially supportive for people who feel anxious, shut down, tense, disconnected from their body, or overwhelmed by what they are experiencing internally.
Craniosacral can be integrated with psychotherapy and Tai Yi energy work to help you drop into your body. Helping you move through issues more easily by assisting the nervous system to relax and helping you feel more deeply and not get stuck in the mind.
What to Expect in a Session
You do not need to arrive with everything figured out.
A session may begin with whatever is most present: anxiety, depression, body tension, a relationship trigger, a memory, a feeling of numbness, a spiritual question, or the sense that something in your system needs attention.
Depending on what is needed we will use different tools.
Some sessions may be:
- Traditional Talk Therapy
- Internal Family Systems focused (AKA parts work)
- Craniosacral Assisted
- Choosing an appropriate Life Energy Flow Tai Yi treatment
The process is collaborative and paced with care.
You do not need to force yourself to go somewhere before your system is ready.
Tai Yi Treatments
For trauma
Life Energy Flow Tai Yi a body based energetic modality that works with the deeper levels of your system to assist with issues.
Click on a Treatment Title to learn about what it does.
May relate to:
- Trauma-related stress patterns
- Feeling emotionally or physically stuck after a traumatic experience
- Hypervigilance or feeling on alert; Emotional overwhelm connected to trauma
- Difficulty connecting thoughts, emotions, and body responses after trauma
- Avoidance or emotional numbing
People May Say:
- “I know the event is over, but my body still reacts.”
- “I feel like part of me is still stuck in what happened.”
- “I avoid thinking about it, but it still affects me.”
- “I feel disconnected, numb, or far away from myself.”
- “I want to feel safer in myself again.”
Stress of Death assists when a person is working with trauma-related stress, shock, fear, hypervigilance, emotional numbing, or body-based activation after a frightening or overwhelming experience.
This treatment works in two parts.
- The first part supports the reestablishment of “pictures” in the brain which are the inner images through which the brain, mind, and emotional body communicate.
- The second part helps clear stagnation from meridians within the brain, supporting clearer communication with the higher mind, and creating more clarity, understanding, and focus.
The treatment may be relevant when someone feels that a traumatic or overwhelming experience has disrupted the way their body, emotions, and mind communicate.
It may support beginning to reconnect with inner clarity, body awareness, emotional processing, and a greater sense of internal communication.
This treatment pairs especially well with psychotherapy, parts work and dietary shifts to assist the gut which assists the brains trauma response.
May Relate To:
- Your Perception of Healing as it Relates to Trauma
- The Belief You Can Heal Trauma
- First Steps with Trauma Work
People may say:
- “I don’t know if I can ever move past the trauma”
- “I feel stuck in my trauma (0r the event)”
How it works with trauma:
This treatment works with the perception of trauma based on the beliefs, lies and experiences you have around the trauma.
It is not a treatment to heal the trauma but instead to assist in working through the maze of trauma and to allow you to be on a path of healing once again.
This means letting go of any investment you have in the trauma and learning to move forward releasing it.
May Relate To:
- Not feeling like you can heal
- Understanding where to begin working on trauma
People may say:
- “Things feel so overwhelming I don’t even know where to start”
How it works with trauma:
Healing takes work, but it doesn’t require suffering.
Healing can occur when you take away the inaccurate perceptions. An example could be you need to heal a cut, first you clean the wound, then you bandage, then you caretake. When you perceive a physical issue it can often be simple to see, however mental and emotional issue can sometimes appear more difficult because we can’t see them but reality can be just as simplistic in healing.
May relate to:
- When you judge your healing
People may say:
- “I don’t feel like I’m healing fast enough”
- “I’m so hard on myself”
- “I suck”
How it fits with trauma work
A person can never fully heal their issues while they judge themself. This treatment assists in releasing self judgement to allow deeper healing, that was blocked by the judgement, to actually occur.
May Relate To:
- Developing compassion and internal support
- Giving compassion to self and receiving compassion more deeply
People may say:
- “I don’t like myself”
- “I don’t care about myself”
- “No one care about me”
How it works with trauma:
Sometimes trauma can block self love which is needed to heal trauma. Instilling compassion assists in building back the ability to have compassion during your healing and allowing more gentle growth.