Trauma Integration Protocol (TIP) Therapy in Vermont

TIP

Some people carry trauma that talk therapy alone never quite reaches. You can understand exactly what happened to you, explain it clearly, even help other people through similar things — and still find your body reacting like the danger is happening right now. A raised voice, a certain smell, being touched a specific way, and suddenly you're bracing, freezing, or leaving your body entirely, with no conscious decision involved at all.

That's not a failure of insight. It's a sign that the trauma is stored somewhere insight can't reach on its own — in the nervous system itself, in defensive responses that started and never finished. You may have thought, at some point, that you should be over this by now. And underneath that thought is often a harder one: that if your body still reacts this way, some part of you must still be broken, no matter how much progress you've made everywhere else.

A note from Patrick
I trained directly in the Trauma Integration Protocol because I kept meeting clients exactly like this — people who had already done real work, who understood their history, and were still stuck in a body that hadn't gotten the message. TIP gave me a way to work with that gap directly, rather than talking around it.

What Trauma Integration Protocol Actually Addresses

TIP was developed by Eric Wolterstorff, building directly on Peter Levine's pioneering research into how the nervous system processes threat. The core idea is that traumatic experiences often interrupt the body's natural defensive responses — a fight, flight, or freeze response that started but never got to complete. That incomplete response doesn't just disappear; it stays stored in the nervous system, ready to activate again whenever something resembles the original threat, even decades later.

Rather than only discussing the traumatic memory, TIP works directly with the nervous system's map of the experience. Using a technique called containment, I guide you to hold still while your body's own involuntary responses are given the space and safety to finally complete. This isn't about reliving the trauma — it's about letting your body finish something it was never able to finish at the time.

Who This Work Is For

This approach tends to fit people who've already done meaningful therapeutic work — who understand their trauma intellectually, may have already processed the story of what happened, and are ready to address the part of it that talk alone hasn't touched. If you're tired of managing symptoms your body still produces on its own, and you're ready to work with your nervous system directly rather than around it, this may be the missing piece.

Investment in Your Care

TIP sessions are billed at my cash-pay rate of $250/hour, generally in 90-minute blocks ($375/session), since somatic work of this kind benefits from unhurried time to let the body's process unfold without being cut short. I also accept private insurance and Vermont Medicaid for this service. If you're unsure what makes sense for your situation, we can talk it through on your free consult call.

Can TIP Be Combined with IFS or Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?

Yes. TIP's nervous-system-based approach pairs naturally with Internal Family Systems work, giving both the emotional/parts-based dimension and the physiological dimension of trauma a place to be addressed. For clients already working with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, TIP can also support integration by helping the body complete responses that surface during that process.

Somatic Trauma Therapy Across Vermont

You don't need to live near a major city to access this kind of specialized, body-based trauma work. I provide Trauma Integration Protocol sessions via secure telehealth to adults anywhere in Vermont, in addition to in-person sessions in Montpelier.