Resolving relational wounds, attachment trauma, and early neglect
Developmental & Attachment Trauma in Vermont —
When you grow up in an environment where your emotional or physical needs are consistently missed, ignored, or criticized, your nervous system learns that it must adapt to survive. This adaptation is what we call developmental trauma, relational trauma, or complex PTSD (C-PTSD). Unlike a single shock-trauma event (like a car accident), developmental trauma is a chronic, invisible accumulation of early neglect, parental misattunement, or chaotic family dynamics. As an adult, this can leave you feeling chronically unsafe, hyper-vigilant, or disconnected from yourself and others.
A note from Patrick
Developmental trauma work is personal to me — I've done my own version of this excavation, in my own therapy, and I know how disorienting it can be to realize that the things you've called personality flaws are actually old survival strategies. I'm not interested in helping you manage symptoms from a distance. I want to help you understand where these patterns came from and give the parts of you that are still protecting yourself the chance to finally put that job down.
Signs of Unresolved Childhood Trauma in Adults
Many adult survivors of trauma come to therapy believing they are simply "broken" or "bad at relationships." In reality, they are experiencing the long-term biological echoes of early relational wounds. Developmental trauma often manifests in daily life as:
Chronic Self-Criticism and Shame: An internal voice that tells you that you are inherently unlovable, a burden, or never quite good enough.
Anxious or Avoidant Attachment Styles: Finding yourself either hyper-independent (afraid to rely on anyone) or experiencing severe anxiety in relationships.
Emotional Dysregulation or Numbness: Intense overwhelm (panic, anger), periods of deep dissociation, numbness, or feeling empty are all common experiences for people with underlying relational wounds.
Difficulty Setting Boundaries: Over-functioning for others, people-pleasing, or tolerating poor treatment because saying "no" feels dangerous to your system.
Moving beyond talk therapy to Somatic and Parts Work
Because attachment trauma occurs before our cognitive brains are fully formed, these memories are primarily stored in the body and the subconscious mind. Traditional talk therapy—which focuses only on the intellect—rarely reaches these deeply rooted somatic survival states.
I prefer to go deeper. With Internal Family Systems (IFS) parts work we do not just talk about your past; I actively guide you change how your body holds on to it. You can safely meet the hyper-vigilant protective parts of you that learned to keep everyone at a distance. As these protective shields learn they are finally safe, I can help you turn toward your oldest exiled parts to offer the protective presence, boundary repair, and deep emotional attunement they never received in childhood.
Advanced Trauma Integration: the path to Secure Attachment
Healing from developmental trauma means rewriting your nervous system's blueprint. For clients who hit severe walls in their healing journey, I also offer the option to integrate Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). Ketamine's unique ability to temporarily quiet your brain's rigid defense networks opens up a powerful window of neuroplastic flexibility, allowing us to safely process and unburden early relational wounds that previously felt too overwhelming to approach.
Through this integration, your nervous system can move away from survival-mode hyper-vigilance and shift into a permanent state of secure internal attachment, self-compassion, and ease.
Investment in Your Care
Developmental and attachment trauma work is billed at my cash-pay rate of $250/hour, generally in 90-minute sessions ($375/session), since this kind of deep nervous-system work rarely fits neatly into a 45-minute hour. If cost or coverage is a question for you, that's a normal thing to bring up on our free consult call.
Compassionate trauma care across all of Vermont
You do not have to carry the weight of childhood emotional neglect alone, and you do not have to live near a major city to receive highly specialized trauma care. I provide advanced developmental and attachment trauma therapy via a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform to adults living anywhere in Vermont—from Burlington and Rutland to the most rural communities. You can safely engage in this deep, transformative healing from the comfort and privacy of your own home.
