Trauma Informed Therapy:
Care That Starts With Feeling Safe
Trauma Informed Therapy: Care That Starts With Feeling Safe
Online Trauma Informed Therapy in Indiana, Illinois, and Colorado
Online Trauma Informed Therapy in Indiana, Illinois, and Colorado
ANTHEM | BCBS | AENTA | CIGNA
CARELON | ASCENSION | PRIVATE PAY
A lot of people put off trauma therapy for the same reason: the fear that walking in means being asked to describe the worst thing that ever happened to them, in detail, before they are ready. That fear is reasonable, and it keeps people stuck for years. Trauma Informed Therapy takes the opposite approach. It starts from the understanding that what happened to you shaped how you respond to the world, that those responses made sense at the time, and that healing does not require re-entering the experience on anyone else's schedule. You decide what to share and when. Your therapist's job is to make the room safe enough that you can.
ANTHEM | BCBS | AETNA | CIGNA | CARELON | ASCENSION | PRIVATE PAY
What is Trauma Informed Therapy?
Trauma Informed Therapy is an approach to care built around a simple shift in the question being asked. Instead of asking what is wrong with you, it asks what happened to you, and it treats your reactions as adaptations rather than defects. Hypervigilance, avoidance, difficulty trusting, shutting down under stress, and reacting strongly to things that seem small from the outside all made sense in the context they developed in. They became problems only when the danger passed and the responses stayed.
In practice, this means your therapist pays attention to safety, choice, collaboration, transparency, and pacing throughout the work, not just when trauma is the topic. You know what is happening in a session and why. You are asked rather than told. Nothing is done without your understanding of the purpose. If something feels like too much, that is information your therapist will work with rather than push through.
Trauma Informed Therapy is also not limited to people with a diagnosis. Many people who have been through something difficult never meet criteria for PTSD and still carry the effects in how they sleep, how they trust, and how they react. This approach fits either way.
What Trauma Informed Therapy Helps With
Trauma Informed Therapy is useful whenever past experiences are shaping present life, including:
Trauma and PTSD, whether from a single event or years of accumulated experience
Childhood experiences that still affect adult relationships
Anxiety, panic, and a nervous system that stays on alert
Depression and numbness that followed something difficult
Difficulty trusting people or feeling safe in close relationships
Reactions that feel out of proportion to what triggered them
Shame and self blame connected to what happened
Grief and loss, particularly sudden or traumatic loss
Medical trauma, birth trauma, and experiences within healthcare settings
Feeling disconnected from your body or from the present moment
Starting therapy after a previous experience with a provider that went badly
What Trauma Informed Therapy Sessions Look Like
The first sessions focus on getting oriented and building enough safety to work from. Your therapist will ask what brought you in, but you control the level of detail. It is entirely acceptable to say that something happened and that you are not ready to describe it, and a trauma informed therapist will not treat that as an obstacle.
From there, sessions typically involve:
Understanding how your responses developed and what they were protecting you from
Building skills for staying grounded when distress rises, before doing any deeper work
Working with the present day effects of trauma, such as sleep, relationships, reactivity, avoidance
Naming what you want to be different, and going at a pace that keeps you aligned with those goals
Deciding together whether a specific approach like Cognitive Processing Therapy or EMDR would be useful, if and when you want that
Your therapist will check in about pacing, will explain what they are suggesting and why, and will treat "I do not want to go there today" as a complete answer. Sessions are held entirely online through a secure, private video platform.
Trauma Informed Therapy's Effectiveness
Across decades of psychotherapy research, the quality of the relationship between client and therapist is one of the most consistent predictors of outcome, in some analyses accounting for more variance than the specific technique used. For trauma in particular, perceived safety and a sense of control over the process are strongly associated with staying in treatment, and dropout is one of the main reasons trauma treatment fails to help. An approach like Trauma Informed Therapy, that prioritizes safety, choice, and pacing is therefore addressing the exact point where trauma treatment most often breaks down.
The framework has been adopted widely across healthcare, child welfare, education, and behavioral health systems, and its core principles were formalized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In clinical practice, Trauma Informed Therapy is most often the foundation that specific treatments are built on.
Online Trauma Informed Therapy in Indiana, Illinois, and Colorado
Lotus Counseling Services provides Trauma Informed Therapy to individuals across Indiana, Illinois, and Colorado through secure online sessions.
For trauma work specifically, the online format carries the advantages of being in your own space, with your own comfort items, and not needing to drive home afterward . For many people, being able to end a hard session and stay exactly where they already feel safe makes the work more tolerable.
We accept Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, Carelon, Ascension, and many EAP plans. Private pay options are also available.
Meet Our Trauma Informed Therapists
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Not before you are ready, and not in more detail than you choose. You can begin therapy having said only that something happened. A trauma informed therapist works with what you bring rather than pressing for a full account, and many people find that a good deal of useful work happens before they ever describe the event itself.
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They overlap but are not identical. Trauma Informed Therapy describes how care is delivered: with attention to safety, choice, and pacing. Trauma therapy usually refers to specific treatments such as Cognitive Processing Therapy or EMDR. In practice, the first is the foundation and the second is a set of tools that may be used within it.
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No. Many people carry the effects of difficult experiences without meeting criteria for PTSD. If something that happened is still shaping how you sleep, trust, feel, or behave, this approach applies whether or not it has a diagnostic label.
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That is worth saying out loud in a first session, and it is common. A therapist who works this way will want to know what did not work, what felt unsafe, and what you need to be different this time. Nothing about that conversation is unusual or difficult for your therapist to hear.
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Yes. The approach depends on the therapeutic relationship and on your sense of control over the process, both of which translate to video. Many people find it easier to do trauma work from a space they already feel safe in.
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We accept Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, Carelon, Ascension, and many EAP plans. Private pay sessions are $150. If you have questions about your coverage, reach out and we will help you sort it out.
Ready to Take the First Step?
You've already done something brave by looking for support. Our experienced therapists are here to help you move forward, at a pace that works for you. Reach out today to get matched with a therapist and schedule your first session.
