Relational Trauma Therapy

Logo for Heart Centered Therapy, LLC, offering telehealth therapy for high-functioning adults in Maryland and DMV. Logo shows a heart inside a tree with practice name underneath.

Some relationships leave marks that are hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there. Not one big event, but a pattern: the confusion after every conversation, the sense that you’re always the one adjusting, apologizing, or trying to keep things calm. You might describe the other person as difficult, unpredictable, or exhausting to be around, and still find yourself questioning whether you’re the problem.

This is relational trauma: the lasting impact of being in ongoing conflict, instability, or control with someone you couldn’t simply walk away from, whether that was a parent, a partner, a sibling, or someone else central to your life.

What Relational Trauma Actually Is

Relational trauma builds up over repeated interactions rather than a single incident, which is part of why it’s so hard to name. The High Conflict Institute, founded by therapist and attorney Bill Eddy, has spent years researching a specific pattern they call the “high-conflict personality,” a recognizable set of behaviors (all-or-nothing thinking, blaming others, extreme reactions, unmanaged emotions) that make ordinary conflict resolution impossible. Understanding that this is a documented, recognizable pattern, not just a hard relationship, is often the first relief.

When that pattern centers on one particular person whose behavior seems driven by control, image management, or a total inability to take accountability, some clients find the language of narcissistic abuse recovery more precise. Therapist Stephanie Sarkis, who specializes in gaslighting and narcissistic abuse, writes and speaks widely on recognizing these dynamics and beginning to heal from them.

How It Shows Up

  • Constantly rehearsing conversations in your head before and after they happen

  • Feeling responsible for managing someone else’s emotions or reactions

  • A pattern of codependency, where your sense of okay-ness depends on someone else’s mood

  • Difficulty setting or holding boundaries, even ones you know you need

  • Staying somewhere unhealthy, a family, a workplace, a group, because leaving feels like it would leave someone more vulnerable unprotected

  • Symptoms that overlap with Complex PTSD (C-PTSD): hypervigilance, a harsh inner critic, and difficulty trusting your own read on a relationship

Boundaries come up constantly in this work, and therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab’s writing on the subject is a resource I often point clients toward for accessible, practical language.

How I Can Help

This work starts with helping you trust your own perception again after it’s been questioned or worn down for a long time. In our work together, that means building safety in the therapy relationship, learning to recognize the patterns at play (both the other person’s and your own responses to them), and developing the boundaries and emotional maturity to protect your peace going forward. You can read more about how I approach this work.

Ready to Talk?

If this resonates with you, I’d love to talk. Contact me to schedule a consultation.

Contact Me