Therapeutic Specialties
Therapy for Sexual Trauma & Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) in Milford, Massachusetts. In person & Virtual.
What happened to you wasn’t your fault- and healing is possible.
Of all forms of trauma, sexual trauma tends to leave some of the deepest and most long-lasting marks.
Sexual trauma isn't one experience; it's a vast category that includes assault, abuse, coercion, harassment, exploitation, and violations that may have happened once or over years. Childhood sexual abuse adds another layer: trauma that occurred before there was language or context to understand it, often within relationships that were supposed to be safe.
I’ve sat with women carrying all different versions of this, along with the overwhelming fear, helplessness, violation, and betrayal left in its wake. However it showed up, if your body organized itself around staying safe, this work is for you.
You may have experienced—
Childhood sexual abuse
Incest
Rape or attempted rape
Drug-facilitated sexual assault
Sexual trafficking
Repeated sexual abuse within an intimate relationship
Coercion and pressure
Non-contact sexual trauma
While the imprint of these experiences may have endured long after the event itself, recovery is possible. You can learn to access pleasure, reclaim your body as your own, find safety and ease within, and release the burden of shame that was never yours to carry.
Shame is often the most persistent thing that survives long after the trauma itself.
For many women, especially those who experienced abuse in childhood, shame becomes so deeply woven into a sense of self. It begins to feel like the truth, rather than a response to what you had to endure.
Part of our work together is untangling shame from identity — not through affirmations or convincing yourself to see things differently, but through the lived experience of being witnessed without judgment, as you gradually come to feel, in your body, that you are safe, whole, and enough.
What happened to you was not your fault. The ways your body and mind adapted to survive were exactly right for what you were navigating. That adaptation brought you here. And here, it can begin to shift.
Symptoms Sexual Trauma Survivors Commonly Experience
Strategies your body learned to protect you:
Hypervigilance and feeling constantly on edge
Saying yes when you mean no
Avoiding conflict at any cost
Anxiety about certain people, places, or situations
Disconnecting from your body during sex or intimacy
Difficulty with trust in relationships
Hyper sexuality and risky sexual behavior
Overworking, overachieving, staying endlessly busy
Controlling your environment, food, or body
Dissociation, flashbacks, intrusive memories, nightmares
Those strategies helped you survive— but now come at a cost:
Feeling stuck in survival mode even when life looks okay on the outside
Difficulty with relationships — including the one you have with yourself and your body
Deep feelings of shame, guilt, or being “broken”
Trouble experiencing joy, ease, or pleasure
Difficulty setting boundaries
Feeling burnt out or empty
Feeling like you’re just “getting by” rather than truly living
Physical health ailments with no clear explanation
Chronic exhaustion or feeling depleted
A Somatic Approach to Sexual Trauma
Healing at Felt Sense is rooted in Somatic Experiencing (SE) — a body-based approach that works with your nervous system directly, supporting you in completing and releasing stuck survival responses. Because sexual trauma lives in the body as much as the mind, SE is especially well-suited to help you find your way back to safety and ease.
You don't need a clear or complete memory of what happened. Many clients arrive with fragments, body sensations, or a deep knowing that something shifted- and that's enough to begin.
Therapy for Sexual Trauma- Less Surviving. More Living.
Healing isn’t about rewriting the past. It’s about changing how your body responds to it in the present. It’s when the gap between knowing you're safe and feeling safe begins to close.
It looks like:
Being present in your body in a way that feels safe and manageable
Experiencing pleasure, ease, and connection without immediately bracing
Setting and holding boundaries from a place of groundedness, not guilt
Releasing the shame and self-blame
A sense of self that exists independent of what happened to you
Relationships that feel safe enough to actually be in
A deeper connection to your creativity and vitality
Still have questions?
Sexual Trauma & CSA Frequently Asked Questions
-
No. In fact, many survivors, especially of childhood sexual abuse, don't have a clear memory or narrative in the way you might think. Often there are just fragments, body sensations, emotions, images, smells, tastes, or a sense that something happened without the words to explain it. Somatic Experiencing doesn't require a complete story to work with. A willingness to turn towards what’s present in your body now is all we need to begin.
-
No. This is one of the most common fears I hear, and one of the biggest differences between somatic work and traditional talk or exposure therapy. Somatic Experiencing doesn't require a full retelling of what happened. We work with what's present in your body right now — the activation, the bracing, the shutdown — without needing you to relive the story to process it. If and when you feel ready to explore your story in more detail, I’m ready to go there with you.
-
Shame is one of the most common and most misunderstood responses to sexual trauma. It often has nothing to do with logic. Your nervous system may have taken on shame as a way to make sense of something that made no sense, or to feel a sense of control over what happened. Experiencing shame is not evidence that some part of what happened was your fault. Rather, it's a survival response, and it can be worked with directly in the body, not just reasoned away.
-
No. There’s no expiration date on your healing. Whether it happened once or over years, recently or decades ago, your nervous system can still learn that the danger has passed.
-
For many survivors, yes, sometimes more so. Being in your own space, around your own things (like your pets!), can make it easier to feel safe enough to be present. Online therapy is available anywhere in Massachusetts, and if you're nearby, we can also blend virtual and in-person sessions.
Therapy for Sexual Trauma That Meets You Where You Are
In-person therapy sessions are held at Felt Sense Psychotherapy in Milford, Ma.
Online therapy is available for women located in Massachusetts. For those nearby, we can also create a hybrid schedule that blends in-person and virtual sessions to best support your lifestyle and needs.
You’re not broken. Rather, your nervous system didn’t get to fully process or complete what happened. Wherever you are right now, no matter how long it’s been or what you’ve endured- it's not too late. Healing has no expiration date, and support is here when you're ready.
