Trauma Therapy: You Can't Change Your History But You Can Change Your Relationship to Your History So You Can Heal

This article was revised on September 15, 2026.

A common misconception about trauma recovery is that therapy won’t work because it cannot change the past. However, the true goal of a trauma therapist isn’t to alter your history, but to transform your relationship to it. By processing deep-seated memories safely, you can stop emotional triggers and unlock genuine, lasting mental health healing.

Change Your Relationship to Your Traumatic History

How Can You Change Your Relationship to Your History of Trauma?

While it's true that you can't go back in time to change your history, you can heal in trauma therapy to reduce or eliminate the impact of traumatic experiences.

Transforming Trauma Into Resilience: Current modalities of trauma therapy can help you to transform trauma into resilience by:

• Acknowledging Your Feelings: Acknowledging the pain instead of suppressing it. This means feeling the pain and completing the trauma healing cycle. It does not include toxic positivity, which is not a genuine response to trauma.

• Developing a Support System: Instead of remaining isolated, you can develop a support system with trusted loved ones or support groups.

• Finding Meaning and Purpose: When you discover activities that align with your values, participating in these activities can provide you with motivation and a direction for your life (see my article: Posttraumatic Growth: Developing a Greater Sense of Hope and Meaning in the Aftermath of Trauma).

• Developing Better Coping Skills: Trauma therapy includes helping clients to develop better coping skills to manage emotions before and after processing trauma.

What is Resilience?

Resilience is the capacity to recovery from stress and trauma rather than avoiding hardship (see my article: Developing Emotional Resilience).

Genuine resilience also means finding new hope and growth after trauma rather than pretending to yourself and others that the trauma made you "stronger" when this isn't how you really feel.

What Are the Different Types of Trauma Therapy?

Safe and effective types of trauma therapy include:

• EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Somatic Experiencing
  

•  IFS (Internal Family Systems/Parts Work)

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

Get Help in Trauma Therapy

If you feel stuck due to your traumatic history, you're not alone.

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to process your traumatic history so you can live a more meaningful life.

About Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), IFS, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have over 25 years of experiencing helping individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

I offer a complimentary 15 minute phone call before setting up an appointment.

I see clients in person in my Greenwich Village, New York City (10011) office or online.

Contact Information:

• Website: Visit Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist to learn more about my practice.

• Email: Reach out confidentially via email at josephineferraro@iCloud.com.

• Phone: Call me directly at (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours.

 

What is Complex Trauma?

While a single event, like a car accident or a natural disaster, can cause acute shock trauma, complex trauma refers to a severe psychological condition resulting from chronic, repetitive interpersonal wounds. 

Often rooted in childhood abuse, profound neglect, or ongoing domestic captivity, complex trauma occurs over an extended period, forcing the individual to develop survival adaptations that impact long-term mental health. As a trauma therapist in New York City, I see firsthand how understanding the multi-layered nature of Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is the vital first step toward true clinical recovery and systemic healing.

What is Complex Trauma?

According to SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), 1 in 7 children experience abuse or neglect.

What Are the Symptoms of Complex Trauma For Adults?

The symptoms of complex trauma can include any of the following:

• Feeling anxious
• Feeling depressed
• Experiencing flashbacks
• Experiencing nightmares
• Avoiding circumstances that remind you of the traumatic events (emotional avoidance)
• Having difficulty managing emotions
• Perceiving yourself in a distorted way
• Feeling worthless
• Avoiding or having difficulty with personal relationships
• Feeling disconnected from yourself or others (a form of dissociation)
• Having problems remembering parts of your childhood 
• Having difficulty providing a comprehensive narrative of your childhood memories, which can include fragmented memories.
• Experiencing sleep problems
• Experiencing sexual problems
• Experiencing medical problems, like Type 2 diabetes
• Feeling body aches, including migraines, stomach and digestive problems, arthritis
• Experiencing low energy or fatigue
• Misusing drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food
• Engaging in other compulsive or impulsive behavior, including compulsive gambling, sexual compulsivity, and other behaviors

Examples of Complex Trauma

Complex trauma usually begins in childhood.  These events are recurrent, overwhelming and longstanding, and they are usually perpetrated by other adults, like family members, family friends, neighbors, clergy, and so on.  These incidents often occur over a span of weeks, months or years.

Examples of complex trauma include:

• Physical abuse

• Emotional abuse

• Sexual abuse (see my article: Overcoming the Trauma of Sexual Abuse)

• Profound child emotional neglect (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?)

• Abandonment

• Parentification (role reversal where child takes on the parental role)

• Medical abuse or trauma

• Torture or being held captive

• Living in a war zone or in an area with civil unrest

And so on.

Mind-Body Oriented Psychotherapy For Complex Trauma

The following mind-body oriented therapies are often effective to overcome complex trauma:

• EMDR Therapy which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (see my article: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain)

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy (see my article: Trauma Therapy: The Therapeutic Benefits of Somatic Experiencing)

• AEDP, which stands for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (see my articles: What is AEDP?  Part 1 and Part 2).

• Hypnotherapy, which is also known as Clinical Hypnosis (see my article: What is Clinical Hypnosis?)

• Parts Work Therapy: Ego States Therapy of Internal Family System (see my article: How Parts Work Can Be Empowering)

Get Help in Therapy

If you are experiencing complex trauma symptoms, you could benefit from working with a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Once you have worked through your unresolved trauma, you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, IFS, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I am a trauma therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

I provide a free 15 minute phone call before setting up an appointment.

I see clients in my office in Greenwich Village in New York City and online.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.