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If you’ve been searching for Complex PTSD therapy in Los Angeles that goes deeper than basic talk therapy, you’re not alone. These facts come from years of working with clients who thought they were “too much” — when really, no one had ever explained what was actually going on in their nervous system.
Cheryl Groskopf, LMFT, LPCC is a trauma therapist in Los Angeles specializing in Complex PTSD, anxiety, somatic therapy, and attachment-focused work. She helps high-functioning, emotionally overwhelmed adults break survival patterns and reconnect with themselves through nervous system healing, parts work (IFS), and real relational repair.
If Complex PTSD is rooted in chronic relational harm — then healing has to be relational, too.
It doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read or tools you’ve collected. If your nervous system learned that connection = danger, then even healthy intimacy can feel threatening. That’s why no amount of journaling or solo work can fully rewire the part of you that still scans the environment for closeness, rejection, or being seen.
What Makes Complex PTSD Therapy Different in L.A.
Your therapist isn’t just there to witness — they’re part of the equation
This is one of the most important — and most overlooked — truths in trauma work: your relationship with your therapist is part of the healing.
That doesn’t mean therapy becomes a friendship or emotional dependency. It means the safety you’re building together is the work. The moments where you say something real and don’t get shamed. The times you expect to be shut down but aren’t. The silent beats where your nervous system realizes it’s not in danger anymore.
These aren’t small wins. These are new attachment blueprints. Your nervous system basically starts to internalize a different map: one where you’re not responsible for managing someone else’s emotions… and you still get to stay connected.
This is the level where Complex PTSD therapy actually shifts things. Not just from insight alone, but from experience.
Learn more about relational trauma and attachment wounds.
Not all trauma therapy in LA is built for Complex PTSD. A lot of approaches were designed with single-incident trauma in mind — like a car accident, a medical crisis, or a specific event that overwhelmed the system. That’s where EMDR can be incredibly effective. It helps the brain reprocess memories that are stuck and interrupt the cycle of fight-or-flight activation tied to that one event.
But Complex PTSD doesn’t usually work like that.
If your trauma was relational — chronic, layered, ongoing — then you probably don’t have just one target memory. You have years of nervous system adaptations. You have inner conflicts, emotional whiplash, and protective strategies that formed in response to inconsistent connection — not one-time danger. And that’s where Internal Family Systems (IFS) absolutely shines.
IFS doesn’t just help you understand your trauma — it helps you relate to it differently
In IFS therapy, we work with your internal system of “parts” — the ones that fawn, freeze, rage, overthink, avoid, fix, or numb. These aren’t pathological. They’re protective. They were created by your system to help you survive when things were chaotic, and they each have their own fears, beliefs, and roles.
Here’s what makes IFS different (and wildly effective for Complex PTSD):
We don’t force anything. We build trust with your system.
You’re not “reliving trauma” — you’re dialoguing with the parts of you that still carry it.
The process is gentle, non-shaming, and internal — which means it works even if you’re not ready to “go there” yet.
You don’t need to remember everything. You just need to notice what’s already happening inside.
This is especially important if you’ve tried EMDR and either it didn’t work, it overwhelmed your system, or it felt like something deeper was being missed.
Still have questions? No problem! Learn more about how I use IFS therapy with my Los Angeles clients.
Sometimes you don’t even realize how much you’re managing
I watch it happen in real time. A client is telling a story — calmly, clearly, even laughing a little — but their legs haven’t moved in 20 minutes. They’re holding their breath. Their voice is flat. They’ll say something like, “I’m used to it” or “It wasn’t a big deal” — but their body says otherwise.
That’s where we pause. We don’t push through. We work with what’s showing up in the body, not just what’s being said out loud.
Sometimes that means slowing down and noticing your jaw clench when you talk about a family member. Sometimes it means realizing you can’t feel your feet when you talk about conflict. Sometimes it’s just learning how to stay in your body while someone’s actually listening to you — and not tuning out, correcting, or waiting for you to hurry up.
A lot of my clients have a hard time feeling anything at all. Or they feel everything and shut down from the overload. So we build capacity slowly — in ways that your system can actually tolerate. No deep breathing you secretly hate. No forcing tears. No pretending regulation looks like peace.
Want to know how I actually use somatic therapy in session? Here’s how I work with somatic therapy to support nervous system healing in Los Angeles.
One of the most misunderstood things about Complex PTSD therapy is this: you don’t have to remember the trauma for therapy to work.
That throws a lot of people. Especially those who grew up in families where things were “fine” on paper, but emotionally inconsistent, unavailable, or quietly chaotic underneath. If you don’t have a clear story, a big moment, or a diagnosis — you might wonder if you even qualify for Complex PTSD therapy in the first place. You might think you “just have anxiety,” but again, that’s not the whole picture.
Here’s the truth: your nervous system doesn’t need a narrative to hold onto trauma. It stores threat responses as felt experiences — not tidy memories. That means your body can still be carrying patterns of hypervigilance, shutdown, or appeasement even if your mind doesn’t have the details.
Therapy for Complex PTSD isn’t about digging for trauma. It’s about listening to the survival patterns that are already showing up — the ones you’ve been managing, overriding, or intellectualizing for years.
A lot of people second-guess whether they “deserve” trauma therapy because they didn’t grow up in an obviously chaotic home. Maybe you had present parents. Maybe nothing that terrible happened. Maybe you didn’t even learn about Complex PTSD until your 30s, when everything looked fine — but sure as hell didn’t feel fine.
Here’s the truth: Complex PTSD doesn’t always start in childhood. It can come from emotionally toxic adult relationships. From high-control workplaces. From years of gaslighting, code-switching, or silencing yourself to survive. It can come from being the one who held it all together during someone else’s addiction, illness, or dysregulation.
Adult-Onset Complex PTSD Is Real — It’s Just Less Recognized
The absence of childhood trauma doesn’t cancel out the damage
You might’ve had a relatively steady upbringing… and then ended up in a relationship where the emotional stakes were high, and the rules kept changing. Maybe you weren’t physically harmed — but you were constantly walking on eggshells. Or over-functioning to avoid emotional fallout. Or apologizing for things that weren’t yours.
These experiences chip away at your sense of reality. They rewire your nervous system slowly, which is exactly why they’re so often missed — in therapy, in medical care, even in your own reflection.
That’s still trauma. And if no one ever called it that before? That doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.
If you’re reading this blog while sitting on the floor of your kitchen, Googling “why am I still like this after 3 therapists,” or if you just closed seven tabs trying to figure out if your relationship was ever safe — this is for you.
Most Modalities Don’t Go This Deep — Mine Does
And it has to, especially in a city like L.A. We need a holistic approach that looks at the whole picture. Why? Because L.A. rewards performance. Self-reliance. Wellness as productivity. That makes it easy to fall into therapy that’s all about tools, tips, or symptom management — without ever touching the root.
The work I do is different. In Complex PTSD therapy in Los Angeles, we build something slower. More relational. More honest. I work with the parts of you that don’t trust safety yet — and we build it together in real time. This is the kind of therapy that helps Complex PTSD actually heal — not just get managed.
I’m Cheryl Groskopf, a trauma therapist in Los Angeles who works with people who’ve been in survival mode for so long, they barely notice it anymore.
I wrote this blog because I’ve seen too many people come into therapy thinking they just needed better coping skills — when really, what they needed was someone to finally name what they’d been carrying. Not as a diagnosis. As a reality. As something that makes sense, even if no one ever connected the dots before.
Most of the people I work with don’t walk in saying, “I have Complex PTSD.” They say, “I should be fine.” Or “I’ve done the work, but something’s still off.” Or “Why do I still freeze like that?” This blog was written for that person. The one who isn’t looking for a label — just relief, clarity, and a place where their internal world actually makes sense.
If that’s you, and you’re tired of trying to make this make sense alone — you can reach out here.
That’s one of the most common things I hear in Complex PTSD therapy. Your system might logically understand safety, but your body doesn’t always buy it. That’s why I use somatic therapy — we work with what’s actually happening in your body, not just what you’ve already processed in your head.
Because insight doesn’t always lead to regulation. You can know what’s happening and still feel hijacked. In my practice, we focus on how your system is responding underneath the insight — through your breath, your tone, your pacing — and we build the ability to stay with it instead of override it.
In this work, your nervous system is part of the session. That means I’m tracking what happens when you go quiet, when you freeze up, or when your body leaves the room but you’re still talking. It’s slower, deeper, and way less about performance. We don’t just “talk about it” — we interrupt it, gently, in real time.
Totally normal. Your system might be on autopilot in session — especially if you’re used to performing or being the “easy client.” The spiral comes when things start to loosen. That’s not failure. That’s access. In therapy, we work with *that part* — the one who unravels after — instead of just trying to prevent the unraveling.
Yes. Complex PTSD doesn’t always start with a chaotic childhood. It can show up later — in relationships where your emotional reality was denied, in jobs where you couldn’t be human, or in situations where you felt responsible for everyone but yourself. If your system never got to fully exhale, that’s something we work with here.
If reading about Complex PTSD has you realizing there’s more to explore — especially in your body, not just your mind — here are a few posts that dig even deeper into how I work:
What Most People Don’t Know About Somatic Therapy in Los Angeles
This breaks down the real-life truths of what somatic therapy is (and isn’t), especially for people who are skeptical or burned out on “just talking.”
Somatic Therapy for Childhood Trauma
This one’s for you if your trauma didn’t come from one big event — but from years of subtle, emotional survival. We go into what it actually looks like to heal that through the body.
Somatic Therapy Exercises You Can Start Using Now
Not ready to dive into sessions yet? These simple, nervous system-friendly tools are a great place to start feeling more regulated and less reactive — no forced breathwork or fake calm required.
