Do you work with military medical providers at Naval Medical Center San Diego?

Yes, I specialize in treating healthcare professionals from Naval Medical Center San Diego, Camp Pendleton medical facilities, and the VA San Diego Healthcare System. I understand the unique challenges of military medicine including combat trauma, TBIs, military sexual trauma, and the high suicide rates among veteran patients.

Can you help with border medicine trauma and moral injury?

Absolutely. I work with healthcare providers from UC San Diego Medical Center and Scripps who face the complex ethical and emotional challenges of border medicine, including treating separated families, detention-related injuries, and the moral injury of practicing medicine within restrictive systems.

Which San Diego medical facilities do your clients work at?

I treat healthcare professionals from UC San Diego Health, Scripps (La Jolla, Mercy, Encinitas), Rady Children's Hospital, Sharp Memorial, Naval Medical Center, VA San Diego, Kaiser Permanente, and smaller practices throughout San Diego County from North County to South Bay.

What therapy approaches work best for San Diego healthcare workers?

I use nervous system-based approaches including EMDR, Brainspotting, ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy), Somatic Therapy, Internal Family Systems, and CPT. These methods are particularly effective for the complex trauma that military medicine providers, border medicine practitioners, and Level 1 trauma center staff experience.

Do you understand the specific pressures of San Diego's medical landscape?

Yes. San Diego's unique medical challenges include military trauma at Naval Medical Center, border medicine complexities, biotech executive expectations in Sorrento Valley, research pressure at UCSD, and the contrast between treating tourists in paradise while managing severe trauma. I understand how 'America's Finest City' creates additional pressure to appear okay.

Therapy for Medical Providers in San Diego and La Jolla

Serving medical professionals throughout all of San Diego County:
Del Mar • Carlsbad • Encinitas • Coronado • Mission Valley • Hillcrest • Pacific Beach • Carmel Valley • Scripps Ranch • Poway • Rancho Santa Fe • Chula Vista

Trauma & Burnout Therapy for San Diego’s Healthcare Workers

You work at UC San Diego Health, Scripps La Jolla, or Rady Children's. Your office might have an ocean view, and tourists think you're living the dream in "America's Finest City." But living in paradise doesn't protect you from the trauma of healthcare work.

San Diego’s medical landscape brings specific challenges that other cities don't face. You're treating active-duty military with complex trauma at Naval Medical Center. You're seeing border-related injuries that the rest of the country only reads about. You're managing biotech executives from Sorrento Valley who expect cutting-edge treatments for everything.

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

The Weight of Military Medicine

If you work at Naval Medical Center San Diego or the VA, you carry burdens most civilian doctors never encounter:

You're treating 19-year-old Marines with life-altering injuries from training accidents at Camp Pendleton. Their youth and sacrifice weigh on you. You see traumatic brain injuries from IED blasts that will never fully heal. You know their lives are forever changed, and sometimes you're the one who has to tell them.
The military culture of “strength” makes it even harder. These patients refuse to show weakness, and neither do you. But holding their trauma, PTSD from combat, military sexual trauma, moral injuries from war, alongside your own is enough to break you down.
You're navigating VA bureaucracy while trying to provide care. The 15-minute appointments for veterans with complex trauma feel like moral injury. The suicide rate among your patients is devastating. You've lost more patients to suicide than you can count, each one a weight you carry.

The Reality of Border Medicine…

At UC San Diego Medical Center or Scripps Mercy, you're witnessing medical crises shaped by immigration policy:

Families separated during medical emergencies, children alone in the ER because parents were detained
Heat stroke and severe dehydration from desert crossings, patients arriving near death
Children who traveled thousands of miles with untreated conditions now requiring emergency surgery
Pregnant women who delayed prenatal care out of fear, arriving in crisis
The deep wound that happens when the system forces you to practice medicine in ways that violate your values, like stabilizing someone just to discharge them back to ICE detention

You went into medicine to help everyone, but you're caught between compassion and systems you can’t control. The current politics surrounding your patients’ care adds layers of complexity to already difficult medical decisions.

North County to South Bay: Serving All San Diego Healthcare Workers

Scripps La Jolla: Research pressure plus celebrity patients expecting miracles

UCSD Hillcrest: Level 1 trauma center seeing San Diego’s worst accidents and violence
Rady Children's: Pediatric trauma from abuse, accidents, and border crossings
Sharp Memorial: San Diego's busiest ER, overwhelming volume with insufficient resources
Naval Medical: Combat trauma, military sexual assault, TBIs
VA San Diego: Veteran suicides, complex PTSD, bureaucratic moral injury (when hospital policy and insurance constraints violate your ethics and values as a provider)

Life After Healthcare Trauma

You're driving down Coast Boulevard after a shift at Scripps, and for the first time in years, you actually see the ocean; not just pass by it while ruminating about patients. The beauty of La Jolla Cove brings joy, not guilt about feeling anything positive.

A Marine at Naval Medical Center thanks you for saving his life. Instead of immediately thinking about all the ones you couldn't save, you can receive their gratitude. Your nervous system allows you to hold both the losses and the saves.
You're treating a border-crossing patient with complex trauma. Their story is heartbreaking, but you stay present and effective instead of absorbing their pain into your body.
During wildfire season, when Scripps Encinitas fills with evacuees, you remain steady.

The Neuroscience of Why You Can’t Just Talk Your Trauma Away

General talk therapy simply can’t address how military trauma, border medicine stress, and research pressure have rewired your autonomic nervous system.

Trauma lives in your body as much as your mind. That's why I've trained extensively in nervous system approaches that heal trauma where it is stored:

EMDR to reprocess traumatic memories without retraumatization
Brainspotting to locate and release trauma from your subcortical brain
ART to change traumatic imagery, typically in 1-5 sessions
Somatic Therapy to help your body release what it's been holding
IFS to heal the internal conflicts healthcare creates
CPT to address the moral injury unique to medical professionals

Healing your nervous system makes it possible to stay in the career you worked so hard for, without sacrificing your mental health, relationships, or sense of self.

Your healing doesn't require rehashing every trauma or talking for months about your childhood. We work directly with your nervous system using proven, efficient methods that create real relief.

Investment in Your Career Longevity

I offer 50-minute sessions, 90-minute sessions, and 4-hour intensive sessions for people who want to make significant progress quickly.

Session fees:

50-minute session: $300
90-minute session: $450
4-hour intensive: $1,200

I don't take insurance, but I can provide a Superbill (documentation for out-of-network reimbursement) if your insurance plan offers it. Payment is due at time of scheduling, and future sessions are billed 24 hours in advance.

All sessions are virtual/online only. I provide therapy to medical professionals in all of California.

I have immediate openings for San Diego healthcare workers.

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