Florida & North Carolina (Online & In-Person)
Betrayal Recovery Therapy
Find support for the pain of betrayal trauma and guidance for healing yourself and your relationship.
When Trust Is Broken, Everything Changes
The Shame Is Not Yours to Carry
We rely on a few significant others in our lives to be our companions, our defenders, our partners, and our supporters when life gets hard. When trust is broken with someone that important, it changes everything. The impact damages our view of ourselves and our interactions with the rest of the world. Often it brings shame on its victims, even though they had no control over what happened to them. Unfortunately, the shame can keep you silent, afraid to reach out to people who love and care for you, people who could help you heal. Isolation makes matters worse. For healing to happen, you need a safe person to help you process the feelings and make sense of what happened. Working with a Betrayal Trauma Therapist can give you the support you need to deal with the pain of betrayal trauma and to offer guidance for healing yourself and your relationship.
What happens in Betrayal Trauma Therapy?
When an intimate partner secretly lives another life, the effects can be devastating for your soul. You need to prioritize your emotional safety and stabilization. It takes time for you to adjust to the reality of your spouse's actions when you were living in an alternate reality. You need to give yourself room to feel the impact and process those emotions first, and then you will be able to address the relationship and begin to discover where to go from here.
Steps of betrayal recovery
Step 1
Create Safety:
Establish immediate physical and emotional safety through boundaries that reduce dysregulation and protect your well-being. Begin to process your emotions with the support of an understanding and compassionate counselor.
Step 2
Seek Clarity of Truth:
Observe external evidence of your partner's internal changes to identify signs of genuine repentance and accountability. Learn to trust your own perceptions again, and reject the shame you have carried that does not belong to you.
Step 3
Explore Reconnection:
Learn the necessary components of trust. Consider options for forgiveness, trusting again, and how to heal the relationship going forward.
What is Betrayal Trauma?
Betrayal trauma is a response to a traumatic event caused by an intimate partner, like infidelity, addiction, financial, or other betrayals of trust where the partner had no idea what behavior was going on. The deception is almost always more damaging than the actual harmful actions taken. It leaves a person questioning the reality they have lived in, leaving them no longer able to trust in their own senses and perceptions. This creates a crisis of an internal fragmentation of the soul. Having the most important person in your life betray the trust you have in them, seeking their own good despite the harm to you, shatters your heart and your life in multiple ways.
Signs that you're making progress
After working toward healing and feeling safer, you can begin to...
Process your emotions, learning to feel them with supports in place
Assess the impact on you and share it in a way that will be heard and understood
Release the shame you have been carrying because it doesn't belong to you
Rebuild confidence in your own perceptions again
Recognize reliable external signs of your partner's internal repentance
Learn the difference between forgiveness and trusting again
Discern the difference between mistakes and patterns of deceit
How To Get Started
Step 1
Phone Consultation
We will discuss what is happening now and I will answer any questions you have.
Step 2
Schedule your first session
We can meet in person at my office, or online through telehealth. I will send you intake forms to complete online before our first meeting.
Step 3
Start sessions
Begin the process of sharing your story and being heard. Grow in the comfort of being understood and gain clarity on your next steps.
It’s time to begin healing.
There is healing available for your heart.
It's time to give yourself the support and safety you need.