Evidence-based PTSD therapy in San Diego and virtual care across California.
PTSD Therapy in San Diego
Move forward from trauma with research-supported PTSD treatment that helps you reconnect with your life, relationships, and sense of safety.
You may want to move on from the past, but painful memories, nightmares, anxiety, or reminders of what happened keep pulling you back. You may feel on edge in public, distant from people you love, or exhausted from constantly trying to manage symptoms.
Effective trauma-focused treatment can help you reduce the unwanted impacts of PTSD and reconnect with what matters most.
When Trauma Keeps Pulling You Back to the Past
You are looking for relief. You want to reverse the toll trauma has taken on your life, your relationships, your sleep, and your ability to feel present. Constantly being on guard and trying to manage symptoms can take you away from what matters most.
Painful memories or reminders that keep returning
Nightmares or difficulty sleeping
Feeling on edge, guarded, or unsafe
Anxiety in public places or crowded spaces
Flashbacks or feeling pulled back into the trauma
Anger, irritability, or emotional overwhelm
Feeling distant or disconnected from friends and family
Trouble focusing on work, tasks, or daily responsibilities
Trauma-related guilt, shame, or self-blame
You might be experiencing:
What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?
Understanding the Impact of Trauma
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can develop after experiencing one or repeated traumatic events, including exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence involving you or a loved one.
PTSD often affects how you view yourself, others, and the world around you. It can change how reactive your anxiety system feels to danger or potential threats, how regulated your emotional system feels, and how often your mind pulls you back to the past through unwanted memories, nightmares, or flashbacks.
These changes can lead to distressing trauma reminders, chaotic emotions, pessimism toward yourself or others, increased fear about safety, feeling constantly on edge, and difficulty sleeping.
You may find that PTSD symptoms interfere with your relationships, make it difficult to focus at work, or make routine outings feel exhausting.
Although the past cannot be erased, research-supported treatments can help reduce the unwanted impacts of trauma and PTSD.
Types of Trauma We Treat
We work with adults seeking PTSD therapy after experiences such as:
Sexual assault or sexual violence
Childhood abuse, neglect, or molesation
Combat or deployment trauma
Domestic violence or intimate partner violence
Moral injury or trauma-related guilt and shame
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Trauma as a first responder, medical professional, or while on the job
Stalking
Work or training accidents
Traumatic death of a loved one, including suicide
Motor vehicle and transportation accidents
Physical assault
Life-threatening natural disasters
Sudden life-threatening medical emergencies
Harm you caused someone in an accident
Complex PTSD or repeated traumatic experiences
PTSD Symptoms We Help Address
PTSD can affect your thoughts, emotions, body, relationships, and daily routines. You may notice symptoms like:
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Intrusive memories and reminders
Unwanted memories
Flashbacks
Nightmares
Triggering reminders
Difficulty focusing after reminders
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Emotional and physical distress
Anxiety or panic attacks
Anger and irritability
Emotional numbness
Feeling on guard for danger
Sleep disturbances or insomnia
Believing you are no longer worthy of anything good
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Relationships and daily life
Feeling distant from others
Trust issues
Difficulty being in public
Concentration problems
Problematic substance use
Dissociation or impulsive behaviors
PTSD symptoms can look different from person to person. We’ll work together to understand how trauma is impacting your life and what kind of support will be most effective.
Evidence-Based PTSD Treatment in Mission Valley, San Diego
How trauma-focused therapy works:
We specialize in treating PTSD with some of the most effective research-supported therapies available.
Treatment starts with an assessment to understand your personal experience of PTSD symptoms, identify factors that may be keeping symptoms stuck, and explore your initial goals for treatment. This allows us to have a tailored, in-depth discussion about PTSD treatment options and how they may fit your specific needs.
Ultimately, we select a treatment option that feels right as a team.
We offer trauma-focused treatments for PTSD, which allow you to actively process trauma and the impact it continues to have on your daily life.
Trauma-Focused Treatments We Offer
CPT, EMDR, PE, and TrIGR
Evidence-based trauma-focused treatment options we offer include Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Prolonged Exposure (PE), and Trauma-Informed Guilt Reduction Therapy (TrIGR).
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In CPT, we work to identify, challenge, and shift unhelpful trauma-related thoughts that keep PTSD symptoms stuck.
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EMDR allows you to process trauma and reduce its emotional intensity through a process called bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or shoulder tapping.
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In Prolonged Exposure, you gradually approach trauma-related memories, reminders, and situations in an intentional and safe manner. Consistent exposure practice can help you learn that you can handle trauma-related thoughts, emotions, and situations without avoiding them or becoming overwhelmed.
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TrIGR is designed to specifically address guilt, shame, and moral injury through education about guilt, re-examining guilt conclusions, and re-establishing values-based living.
A Personalized and Collaborative Approach
Our licensed psychologists, Michelle Lyons, PhD and Robert Lyons, PhD are highly specialized in the treatment of PTSD and experienced in managing concerns that often co-occur with trauma symptoms, including anxiety disorders, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and panic attacks.
We work to understand who you are beyond your experience of PTSD symptoms so therapy can help you re-engage with what matters most.
We provide a safe and identity-affirming environment, with an emphasis on trust, transparency, and collaboration. We will discuss the “why” behind strategies so treatment makes sense to you first.
What PTSD Therapy Can Look Like
PTSD no longer has to keep you stuck in the past
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Process trauma in depth
Better manage intense emotions
Put the trauma in the past, where it belongs
Manage trauma memories and triggers more effectively
Improve sleep and reduce nightmares
Feel more comfortable in public or crowded spaces
Build trust in your relationships
Improve depression and anxiety symptoms
Learn to safely let your walls down again
Reconnect with family and friends
Loosen the grip of guilt and self-blame
Improve attention and concentration
Reduce anger outbursts and irritability
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Sessions begin with a check-in about concerns, positive changes, and any tools you practiced between sessions. From there, we focus on the treatment goals you have already set for yourself using evidence-based strategies tailored to your specific experience of PTSD.
Sessions are both responsive to how you’ve been doing and continuously focused on why you began therapy in the first place.
To end the session, we collaborate on commitments you want to set for yourself using the strategies discussed.
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With effective treatment, your time is no longer dominated by attempts to suppress trauma memories and emotions.
Over time, you may begin to feel more relaxed, connected, and present in your daily life. You may notice improved self-esteem, restored self-compassion, and a deeper understanding of your trauma that begins to replace guilt and self-blame.
Progress can look like feeling joy again, feeling more comfortable in public, reconnecting with family and friends, and focusing more clearly on what matters most in your life now.
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We offer telehealth therapy for PTSD in California and Florida, as well as in-person PTSD therapy in San Diego.
We understand that trauma-focused treatment can be difficult and that these therapies are not one-size-fits-all. We work to foster trust and openness in the therapeutic relationship and regularly check in about your perception of progress without judgment.
We are flexible in our approach and can shift the pace, focus, or approach of therapy when appropriate. We also understand that life is busy and offer afternoon and limited evening appointments.
At the same time, we aim not to consistently avoid PTSD treatment, as avoidance can maintain or worsen PTSD symptoms. When we notice a pattern of avoidance, we discuss it openly and work to address it in therapy with flexibility and care.
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PTSD commonly affects family members and friends. Loved ones may have difficulty talking with you about PTSD or may not understand why you feel irritable, withdrawn, or on edge.
We welcome loved ones to join treatment if that feels meaningful and appropriate to you. Loved ones often attend sessions to learn about PTSD and how to be more helpful and supportive in your daily life and treatment goals.
If you are interested in involving loved ones, we make sure we are on the same page about their role and only discuss what you are comfortable sharing.
PTSD Therapy in San Diego & Online in California
In-person in Mission Valley + telehealth options
We offer in-person PTSD therapy in San Diego, including Mission Valley, as well as virtual PTSD therapy across California and Florida.
Our work is focused on adults seeking specialized, evidence-based trauma treatment for PTSD, complex PTSD, and related concerns.
You don’t have to stay stuck living with trauma symptoms.
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You don’t have to stay stuck living with trauma symptoms. —
Start PTSD Therapy in San Diego
We offer free 15-minute consultation calls to help you determine if this approach is the right fit for you. This is an opportunity to ask questions, learn more about how we work, and explore what next steps could look like.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions about PTSD Therapy
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PTSD therapy is focused on helping you understand and treat the specific ways trauma continues to affect your thoughts, emotions, body, relationships, and daily life.
Rather than only talking generally about current stressors, evidence-based PTSD treatment uses structured, research-supported approaches designed to reduce trauma-related symptoms and help you re-engage with your life.
At California OCD and Anxiety Psychologists, we offer trauma-focused treatments such as CPT, EMDR, Prolonged Exposure, and TrIGR.
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We offer several trauma-focused PTSD treatments, including Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Prolonged Exposure (PE), and Trauma-Informed Guilt Reduction Therapy (TrIGR).
Treatment begins with an assessment so we can understand your symptoms, goals, and what is keeping PTSD stuck. From there, we discuss treatment options together and select an approach that fits your needs.
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Trauma-focused PTSD treatment does require some willingness to discuss the impact trauma is having on your life. Some approaches may involve processing trauma memories more directly than others.
If you feel hesitant to talk about trauma, that does not automatically mean therapy is not for you. We can explore what is driving that hesitation and help you understand what treatment could look like. If you are unwilling to discuss the impact of trauma at all, the specific approaches we offer may not be the right fit at this time.
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Yes. Trauma-related guilt, shame, and moral injury are common concerns in PTSD therapy.
We offer Trauma-Informed Guilt Reduction Therapy (TrIGR), which is specifically designed to address guilt, shame, and moral injury. This approach helps clients examine guilt-related conclusions, better understand the context of what happened, and reconnect with values-based living.
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Yes. We offer virtual PTSD therapy throughout California and Florida, as well as in-person therapy in Mission Valley, San Diego.
Telehealth can make specialized PTSD treatment more accessible while still allowing for structured, evidence-based care.
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This is common. PTSD often occurs alongside anxiety, depression, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic attacks, or substance use.
We have experience treating PTSD alongside co-occurring concerns and will work with you to understand which symptoms are most impairing and what treatment focus makes the most sense. If a higher level of care or different specialty support is needed, we can provide referrals.
relief from trauma symptoms is within reach
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reach out today
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relief from trauma symptoms is within reach — reach out today —