BROOKE POMERANTZ, LCSW | CALIFORNIA THERAPY & THERAPY IN OAKLAND
Relational Trauma Therapy in OaklandMaladaptive relational patterns don’t have to repeat forever. Whether sessions take place in North Oakland or via secure telehealth, therapy can help clarify how chronic relational difficulties shaped a person and their relational patterns, and support the development of safer, sturdier, and more satisfying connections.
What Is Relational Trauma?
Relational trauma is trauma that develops within the context of a close relationship over an extended period of time. This type of trauma can hurt a person’s ability to attach securely to others and can impair one’s ability to form and keep healthy bonds.
Relational trauma is not limited to the trauma that can occur between a parent and child. It can also develop in other relationships – siblings, extended family or in intimate relationships.
Relational trauma is a pattern of harm or maladaptive relating that occurs within a close relationship that causes distress, anxiety, mood difficulties, self-esteem, and impairs one’s ability to develop and maintain healthy relationships in other areas of one’s life.
How It Shows Up in Adult Life
Early attachments provide the blueprint for how to be in a relationship. Difficulty finding or maintaining a romantic relationship, trouble building friendships or feeling a shaky sense of safety while parenting can be related to relational trauma. These past wounds can also impact a person’s work life and relationships, including relationships with managers, colleagues and direct reports.
The Path to Healing and Secure Connection
Therapeutic changes happens over time. The therapeutic frame creates safety through consistency and boundaries. Old relational dynamics can often present themselves in the treatment. This can present an opportunity to work through a relational challenge in vivo. When hurt or anger arises in the psychotherapy treatment, it can be spoken about and worked through. Missteps can be acknowledged. This corrective experience can be deeply healing.
Relational Patterns That Keep You Stuck
Fear of Abandonment or Rejection
Worrying that conflict will lead to loss or disconnection
Overextending yourself to keep others close
Feeling anxious or preoccupied when someone pulls away
Difficulty Trusting or Relying on Others
Assuming you have to handle everything on your own
Struggling to ask for help or express needs
Losing clarity about who you are outside of your roles or accomplishments
Impact on Daily Life or Relationships
Repeating similar dynamics in friendships, partnerships, or at work
Avoiding intimacy or vulnerability to prevent being hurt
Feeling both the desire for closeness and the urge to withdraw
How Therapy Can Help Heal Relational Trauma
Therapy offers a steady and safe space in which to look at maladaptive patterns and also practice new ways of relating – first with the therapist, later with other important people in your life.
For over-functioning and control
You and your therapist track where the drive to hold everything together began. The goal is to work toward developing a kinder, softer, more flexible stance toward yourself. You move closer to this goal through implementing incremental changes including asking for help, allowing yourself to lean on others, and/or receiving care, rather than supplying all of it on your own.
For fear and avoidance
In treatment, you identify core fears and the functions that avoidance serves. Ambivalence about change is expected and respected; readiness guides pacing. Sometimes processing fear loosens it; at other times, taking very incremental steps toward what is frightening, with attention to the person’s window of tolerance can effect change.
Working the cycle itself
In therapy you can reality test catastrophic thinking, examine cognitive rigidity, and invite more flexible thinking. As small changes are attempted at a manageable pace, gains are identified, reflected and reinforced, and next steps are refined.
My Approach to Relational Trauma Therapy
Therapy for relational trauma is grounded in safety, consistency, and collaboration. The work moves at a pace that feels manageable, with space to hold both readiness and hesitation around change. The goal is not to rush change, but to create a secure base from which healing can occur. In treatment, we may:
1) Explore how early relational experiences have shaped current patterns of closeness, avoidance, or control
2) Identify and unpack fears around initimacy, conflict, or dependency
3) Examine the functions that are over-functioning, self-reliance, or avoidance have served.
4) Work directly with moments of disconnection or tension in therapy to create corrective, reparative experiences
5) Strengthen the capacity for self-compassion, emotional regulation, and trust both within the therapeutic relationship and beyond it
What to Expect in Our First Sessions
In our first four sessions together, my focus is on getting to know you – really understanding your story, your relationships, and what brings you to therapy.
Explore Your History
Initial sessions focus on the person’s story: what has been hard in relationships, how coping has looked, and where stuckness or loneliness appears. Attachment history, current relationships, and daily rhythms are reviewed to see how patterns show up now.
Set Goals
By around the fifth session, collaborative goals are shaped and adjusted as needs evolve.
I’ll share my insights based on what I’ve learned so far, and we’ll collaborate to shape a direction that feels aligned with your needs, values, and intentions.
Review & Iterate
This early work lays the foundation for meaningful, focused therapy moving forward.
I believe it’s important for us to check in regularly and adjust the treatment as needed, so it continues to support you in the best way possible.
About Me
I’m Brooke Pomerantz, a licensed therapist based in Oakland and serving clients across California, New York, and Indiana. My approach is warm, collaborative, active, and grounded in many years of clinical work experience, ongoing professional development and consultation and my desire to be accessible and deeply humane in doing this work. I’m here to support you through life’s challenges with thoughtful, personalized therapy.
Brooke Pomerantz
Brooke Pomerantz is a compassionate and experienced licensed clinical social worker dedicated to providing supportive therapy services in Oakland and through teletherapy across California. With a focus on creating a safe and nurturing environment, Brooke helps clients navigate life’s challenges, fostering growth and healing through personalized therapeutic approaches.