What makes LA healthcare particularly traumatic for medical workers?

Los Angeles healthcare workers face unique trauma from high rates of gun violence (especially Saturday night GSWs from South LA, East LA, and Compton), treating homeless patients from Skid Row with no follow-up options, watching poverty-related preventable diseases progress, chronic understaffing with 40 patients in shifts designed for 20, and constant infrastructure failures with broken equipment and supply shortages.

How is treating gun violence different from other medical trauma?

Gun violence trauma is particularly intense because you're often treating young patients who look like your own children, dealing with mothers collapsing in hallways, seeing the same violence patterns repeat weekly, and carrying the weight of preventable deaths. The repetitive nature of Saturday night GSWs creates cumulative trauma that standard therapy doesn't address.

Why do LA doctors and nurses develop moral injury?

Moral injury develops when you're forced to practice medicine in ways that violate your values: discharging homeless patients to the street knowing wounds will worsen, watching patients choose between groceries and heart medication, fighting insurance denials for obviously necessary care, and rationing basic supplies while knowing patients suffer. The broken system forces you to provide inadequate care.

How does virtual therapy work with LA healthcare schedules?

Virtual therapy eliminates commute time on the 405 and downtown parking hassles. You can connect from home, your call room, or anywhere safe. I offer early morning sessions before rounds, evening sessions after shifts, and weekend appointments. The 4-hour intensive sessions work perfectly between shift blocks to process significant trauma quickly.

What therapy approaches work for LA emergency medicine trauma?

EMDR helps reprocess traumatic memories like pediatric codes and failed resuscitations so they stop triggering your nervous system. Brainspotting locates where your brain stores specific traumas without verbal processing. Somatic Therapy addresses the physical storage of trauma - the chronic tension, gut issues, and exhaustion. ART rapidly changes intrusive images from violent cases.

Can therapy really help when the healthcare system stays broken?

Yes. While we can't fix the system, therapy helps you stay present during trauma without your nervous system flooding, provide excellent care without absorbing patients' pain, advocate for change without taking system failures personally, and process trauma in real-time instead of accumulating it. You'll still feel appropriate anger and frustration, but emotions move through you instead of getting stuck.

Healthcare Worker Trauma

Therapy Los Angeles

Serving Los Angeles County: Downtown, East LA, South LA, West LA, and the Valley

You’re a Good Doctor In a Broken System

You see 40 patients in a shift designed for 20. The homeless patient with infected wounds returns for the fifteenth time this month. You clean and bandage them, knowing they're returning to Skid Row where the infection will worsen. There's no wound care in a tent, no healing on concrete.

Or it's the grandmother who hasn't taken her heart medication in three months because she chose groceries over prescriptions. Watching preventable disease progress because of poverty feels violating.

LA means constant exposure to human violence and its aftermath. Saturday nights bring GSWs from South LA, East LA, Compton. You're working on kids who look like your own, while mothers collapse in your hallways.

The infrastructure failures compound your trauma daily. Your suicidal patient needs inpatient psychiatry. After a six-hour wait, they're discharged with an outpatient referral they'll never follow.

You're rationing basic supplies, working with broken equipment, fighting insurance denials for obviously necessary care.

Learn more about my approach to trauma therapy for medical providers here.

Trauma Treatment for Sustainable, Long-Term Practice

When your next trauma patient arrives, you'll respond with skill and compassion, but their pain won't invade your body. You'll be fully present during the code without your nervous system flooding. Your hands stay steady, your mind stays clear, and afterward, you don't replay it obsessively.
Instead of frustration about “frequent flyers”, you'll feel appropriate concern. You'll provide excellent care without taking their circumstances home. You can advocate for system change without absorbing system failure as personal defeat.
Your diagnostic skills sharpen because you're actually present, not dissociated. You catch subtle cues others miss. Patients sense your genuine presence and trust you more. Your clinical judgment improves because you're not clouded by unprocessed trauma.
You become the colleague everyone wants on their tough cases, not because you're unaffected, but because you've learned to process trauma in real-time instead of accumulating it.
You'll still feel the gut-punch when you lose someone young, angry when insurance denies necessary care, and frustrated by system failures. But these emotions move through you instead of getting stuck. You can feel them, learn from them, then let them go.

Most importantly: You can imagine doing this for twenty more years without feeling dread. The wins, like successful codes, caught diagnoses, pain relief, register as meaningful again. You remember why you sacrificed so much to become a physician.

Why These Approaches Work

Trauma doesn't respond to logical thinking. You can't talk your way out of trauma responses, even when you intellectually understand that you did everything right.

EMDR helps your brain reprocess traumatic memories so they stop triggering your fight-flight-freeze response. That pediatric drowning, the failed code on someone your age, the patient who bled out, these become memories instead of current threats.

Brainspotting locates where your brain physically stores trauma. We find the spot connected to your worst cases and process them without having to verbally relive everything.

Somatic Therapy addresses the physical toll. The chronic neck pain from constant tension, the gut issues from suppressed emotions, the exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. Your body learns to discharge trauma instead of storing it.

ART changes intrusive images rapidly. The visual flashbacks lose their emotional charge in just a few sessions.

Completely virtual. No sitting on the 405. No downtown parking hassles. Connect from home, your call room, wherever feels safe. Weekend, early morning and evening sessions available.

50-minute session: $300

90-minute session: $450

4-hour intensive: $1,200 (process significant trauma between shift blocks)

I offer telehealth for medical professionals throughout California. Early morning and weekend appointments are available because I understand your schedule doesn't look like a typical 9-to-5.

Trauma Treatment That Works With Your Schedule

Schedule a Session or Contact Me

Meet Summer

I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over a decade of experience, including years working in healthcare settings.

I specialize in trauma for medical professionals. I'm trained in EMDR, ART, Brainspotting, Somatic Therapy, Internal Family Systems, and CPT because I've seen these approaches create real relief for healthcare workers when traditional talk therapy hasn't been enough.

I work with physicians, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, psychotherapists, social workers, and other medical professionals who need direct, effective treatment that works with their schedule and addresses trauma at the nervous system level.

I offer telehealth in California and Idaho. Early morning and weekend appointments are available because I understand your schedule doesn't look like a typical 9-to-5.

More about Summer