Healing Root Causes
for Lasting Change
Many concerns that look like anxiety, depression, burnout, or relationship conflict are also shaped by
what your nervous system has lived through.
We help you work at the level where patterns actually change — not just where symptoms temporarily improve.
What “Root Causes” Means in Therapy
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Root causes aren’t about blaming the past — they’re about understanding what your mind and body had to adapt to.
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In practice, we often see root causes such as:
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long-term stress or emotional overwhelm that never fully resolved
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attachment injuries (feeling alone, unseen, unsafe, or “too much”)
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developmental trauma or chronic invalidation
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sudden events that left the body on high alert
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protective strategies that once helped, but now create suffering (shutdown, perfectionism, people-pleasing, conflict cycles)
Signs You May Be Living with Unresolved Stress or Trauma
This can look like:
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feeling “fine” on the outside but tense, numb, or keyed up inside
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anxiety, panic, dread, or persistent overthinking
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shame, harsh self-criticism, or feeling fundamentally “not enough”
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emotional flooding or shutting down in relationships
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chronic fatigue, brain fog, sleep disruption
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feeling unsafe even when life is stable
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repeating the same relational patterns despite insight and effort
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Important: none of these reactions mean you’re broken. They often reflect a nervous system doing its best to protect you.
How Healing Happens
EMDR
EMDR is a a structured approach that helps the brain reprocess stuck traumatic memories so the present feels safer.
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)
A neuroscience-based therapy that works with shock and deep threat responses in the body, often beneath words.
Internal Family Systems
IFS helps you relate differently to inner conflict, protective parts, and shame — with more clarity and self-leadership.
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Skills-Based and Integrative Support
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In addition to deeper trauma-focused therapies, we integrate skills-based approaches when helpful. This may include elements of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), mindfulness-based strategies, and emotion regulation skills. These approaches can support stabilization, coping, and day-to-day functioning — particularly during periods of stress — and are thoughtfully integrated based on your needs, goals, and readiness.
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Healing Root Causes in Relationships
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Many of the patterns that bring couples to therapy — conflict cycles, emotional distance, reactivity, or shutdown — are also shaped by unresolved stress, trauma, and attachment injury. In couples therapy, we work with these underlying dynamics so that both partners can feel safer, more connected, and better able to respond rather than react. Trauma-informed couples therapy allows relational patterns to shift at their roots, not just at the level of communication skills.
What to Expect
Getting Started
We begin by understanding what’s bringing you to therapy now, your history, and what feels most important to address. Early sessions focus on building safety, trust, and a shared understanding of your goals and pace.
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Deeper Therapeutic Work
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When appropriate, we work with underlying trauma, stress responses, and attachment patterns using approaches such as EMDR, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), and IFS-informed therapy. This work is always paced carefully and collaboratively.
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Integration and Ongoing Support
As symptoms ease and patterns shift, we focus on integration — supporting insight, emotional regulation, and meaningful change in daily life and relationships.