Rachel Hansen LCSW

My practice is fully trauma informed and all treatment uses a trauma aware lens. I am trained in the gold standard evidence based EMDR modality. I am experienced in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy and Integration. I also use CBT to address the negative thoughts that accompany complex childhood traumas.

I work with the full range from faith deconstruction to religious trauma to cult exit recovery - wherever you are on the spectrum. Leaving a high-control belief system or community often leaves lasting effects on trust, identity, and the nervous system, and that experience is understood here from lived familiarity, not just theory. This is not about arriving at a particular conclusion about faith. It's about reconnecting with your own sense of safety, truth, and authority over your own life.

EMDRIA Certified, which requires advanced training and consultation beyond a basic certificate. A "blind to the therapist" option is offered, so a memory can be fully processed without disclosing its contents. This matters most for clients who have been silenced or shamed into secrecy, since healing here doesn't require retelling the story out loud to begin.

EMDR is used as a primary approach for PTSD and complex trauma, alongside CBT and somatic awareness, so the nervous system does the processing rather than requiring you to narrate every detail of what happened. A "blind to the therapist" option is also available, meaning a memory can be fully processed without ever disclosing its contents. Sessions are paced by what your body can tolerate, not a fixed protocol or timeline, so healing doesn't require reliving the worst of it out loud.

Many clients carry the weight of emotional abuse, neglect, or growing up in high-control, shame-based homes where love, safety, or faith were used as leverage rather than given freely. This work doesn't require a complete timeline or perfect memory of what happened. Gaps are common, especially with experiences from childhood. What matters most is how those early patterns still shape your body, beliefs, and reactions today, and helping your nervous system finally learn it's safe now.

Trauma lives in the body long after the story has been told and understood, which is why talk therapy alone often isn't enough. This work pays close attention to what the nervous system is holding, not just what happened, helping clients recognize bracing, shutting down, or hypervigilance as survival responses rather than personal failures, and supporting the body in finally learning it's safe. (I am somatic informed, not trained formally.)

Trauma-informed integration support is offered for adults making sense of an altered state or expanded experience, whether from a recent one or one from years ago that never got processed. This work is grounded in harm reduction, personal familiarity with non-ordinary states, and ongoing consultation, and it focuses on translating insight into lasting, concrete change rather than the experience itself.