Intimacy After Sexual Trauma

If you are a survivor of sexual trauma, you have likely felt its impact in your closest relationships. Experiences of powerlessness and violation leave enduring marks on our minds and bodies, making it difficult for us to get close, trust others, attune to our bodies’ messages, experience embodied sexual pleasure, and know/communicate our boundaries. Whether you are coming in as an individual or with your partner, the therapists at PCT are ready to help you have the connection with yourself and others that healing makes possible. We are trauma-informed professionals with experience helping individuals across backgrounds, experiences, and identities to find safety, delight, and intimacy in connection with others.

As psychiatrist, trauma researcher, and author Bessel van der Kolk writes, “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.” We are proud to be your safe harbor as you heal and work toward your goals.

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You’re Not Doing It Wrong. It’s Just Really Hard Right NowA Reflection on Parenting, Summer, and the Shame of Not Loving Every Second

There’s a seasonal shift happening—one that brings more daylight, backyard dinners, and sticky popsicle fingers. But for many parents, summer doesn’t feel light and breezy. It feels like pressure. The kids are out of school, routines are gone, and parental personal space evaporates. And in that wide, echoing void, a different presence rushes in: the illusion that you should be savoring every second. That illusion doesn’t soothe, it suffocates. It whispers that if you’re not loving every moment, something must be wrong with you.

In our practice, summer often brings a wave of quiet desperation. The kind of desperation where you find yourself fantasizing about a silent cabin in the woods. The kind where you dread making yet another camp lunch, feel overwhelmed by the logistics of pickup times that change weekly, and beat yourself up for not being more grateful for the chaos.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the truth: Loving your children and feeling claustrophobic around them are not contradictions. They are co-existences, which is a part of life’s gray space.

Intimacy After Sexual Trauma

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