Einat Ezra, LMFT Book a free call

Trauma therapy in Calabasas, Los Angeles & online across California

You’ve asked yourself, “What’s wrong with me?” There may be a better question.

We work with the body and the nervous system, so the old thing stops running the new one.

Brainspotting · EMDR · Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

Book a free 25-minute call

A few minutes with me

What trauma can look like, and how we work with it, so you know what you’d be walking into.

Does this sound like you

Trauma hides in plain sight

Where you might be right now

  • You either feel too much or almost nothing, so life is either overwhelming or distant and foggy.
  • You've spent years believing something is inherently wrong with you, or with your relationships, without knowing it could come from trauma.
  • You're tired of carrying guilt, inadequacy, and a sense of being out of step with your own life.
  • It doesn't have to have been one big event. A quieter thing that went on a long time leaves the same mark, and wondering “was it even that bad, other people have it worse” is often one of the signs.

What we grow toward

  • Waking up calmer, more grounded, and connected to yourself.
  • Feeling lighter and more present, in a body that works as a place you can live rather than somewhere you brace.
  • Relationships that feel authentic, with real moments of joy and closeness in them.
  • Your dreams back in the room: the career, the motivation, the sense of purpose that got put down somewhere along the way.
  • Healing means reclaiming your strength, and moving forward with clarity and hope.

The cave. Trauma creates disconnection: from yourself, from your body, from your dreams, sometimes from a sense of meaning. It can feel like being stuck in a cave, separated from what looks like normal life. And the gap between the cave and that life creates its own fear, because stepping out feels both frightening and out of reach.

So we do two things. First, we make sense of it: your symptoms have a root and a cause, and seeing that is the beginning. Then, gently, we reconnect, and we put some order into the process so there's room to breathe on the way. Toward a full life, by your own measure.

Start here: free call

On the call you tell me what’s going on, I ask a few questions, and we work out what would help and whether I’m the right person for it. 25 minutes, free, nothing to commit to.

What the beginning actually looks like

Getting to know you

What’s happening now, what you want to be different, and how your system responds under pressure? You share your history at whatever level of detail feels right, and that is enough to begin.

Building your capacity

Grounding, stabilizing, calming, and then empowering and strengthening, so you have the capacity to do trauma work. This phase is where a lot of the early relief comes from, and it is real work in its own right.

The trauma work

Brainspotting, EMDR and somatic work, at a pace you set. Much of this happens through the body, so it rarely requires retelling every detail or going back through the whole story.

Trauma doesn't always look like trauma

This is the part most people never connect. They come in for the insomnia, or the irritability, or the back pain that has no medical explanation, and they have never once put those things next to what happened to them.

Body

Sleep that won't come or won't hold. Chronic pain or tension with no clear cause. Stomach and gut trouble. Jumping at sounds. Exhaustion that rest doesn't touch. Headaches, jaw clenching, a chest that feels tight for no reason.

Mind

Intrusive memories and images. Nightmares. Going blank, or losing time. Trouble concentrating or finishing things. Gaps in memory of whole periods. A running commentary that never lets up.

Mood and energy

Flooded one day, flat the next. Panic that arrives without a reason attached. Irritability that surprises you. Numbness. Losing interest in things you used to want. Dread in the mornings.

Relationships

Bracing for rejection. Pulling away when someone gets close, or holding on too tight. Difficulty trusting. Feeling fundamentally separate from other people, even the ones who love you.

How you treat yourself

Shame that doesn't match anything you've done. Self-hatred. Perfectionism that never pays off. Over-apologising. Working past your limits. Numbing with food, alcohol, work or scrolling.

What you expect from life

A sense that good things are temporary. Difficulty imagining a future. Waiting for something to go wrong. Feeling much older than you are, or stuck at the age it happened.

Meaning and faith

The things that used to steady you go quiet. Faith, prayer, a sense of being part of something larger, the feeling that life is basically good or that things tend to work out. For many people it is a real disconnection from God, or from whatever they understood God to be. Trust goes first: in people, in the future, in the order of things. This is the part almost nobody mentions, because it doesn’t sound like a symptom.

Any one of these has other explanations. Several of them together, persisting for years, often points somewhere. Most people arrive having treated each symptom separately, for a long time, without anyone asking what connects them.

Understanding trauma means seeing that your symptoms have a root and a cause. That recognition is usually the first real relief, and it's where we start.

Underneath all of it is disconnection. From yourself, from your body, from your dreams, from other people, and from whatever used to give your life meaning. That last one is easy to miss and it costs the most, because when the sense of goodness in the world goes quiet, there's nothing to reach for on the hard days.

So healing isn't only about symptoms getting smaller. It's reconnection: to yourself, to your body, to the people you love, to your dreams, and to meaning, in whatever form it takes for you. Faith, spirituality, purpose, awe, a sense that you're part of something. That thread comes back, and when it does, everything else has something to stand on.

How I work with trauma

Evidence-based and holistic, tailored rather than a protocol. We work with thoughts, emotions and body sensation together, and we go without shame or blame.

Brainspotting

A neuroscience-based approach for reaching and healing trauma held deeper than talking can get to.

EMDR

Levels 1 and 2, EMDRIA approved. A well-established method for processing traumatic memory and reducing its emotional charge.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

Body awareness worked alongside emotion, to release what's held physically rather than only described.

Psychodynamic, attachment & Jungian work

For the unconscious patterns still shaping your choices, and for what wants to grow underneath them.

Practical tools for daily life

Grounding, regulation and mindfulness you can use in the moment, not only in session.

Meaning

Drawing on Zen, Vipassana and Kabbalah where it's meaningful to you, for the questions underneath the symptoms.

More about each method, and how we choose

You don’t have to know any of this in advance. It’s here because people ask, and because knowing what’s coming makes the first session easier. The body is in the room throughout, whichever of these we are using.

Brainspotting

Where a specific point in your visual field is used to hold attention while the brain processes what's underneath? Often the right choice when something is clearly stuck but hard to put into words, or when talking about it has stopped helping.

EMDR

Bilateral stimulation while a memory is held in mind, so its emotional charge reduces and it stops intruding. Well suited to identifiable events, and to memories that still feel present rather than past.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

Developed by Pat Ogden for trauma and attachment. It treats the body as a source of information, and works directly with what your body learned to do: brace, collapse, hold still. We track sensation, posture and movement alongside what you think and feel, so the change is felt, not only understood. The body is in the room throughout, whichever method we are using.

Psychodynamic and Jungian work

Where the pattern came from and why it still runs. Early relationships taught you what love seemed to require, and those adaptations keep going long after the situation is gone. We look at what repeats, what it protects, and what wants to grow.

We choose together, and we can change it. Nothing here is a fixed protocol. If something isn't working we say so and try something else, and you never have to go faster than you want to.

What I specialise in

Complex trauma, including loss, cultural and religious trauma, cult and spiritual abuse, childhood emotional injury, rejection and attachment wounds, and identity-related pain.

Many people arrive after years of chronic insecurity, anxiety, low self-worth and self-criticism, feeling disconnected from themselves or from other people. I also work with dissociation, DID, and grief after overwhelming or prolonged stress.

Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist · LMFT #149380· Member, ASRM· Certified Brainspotting Therapist· EMDR Levels 1 & 2· Sensorimotor Psychotherapy· MA Psychology, Antioch University

Somatic trauma therapy in Calabasas and across California

My office is in Calabasas, on Mulholland Highway, and I see people in person from Calabasas, Woodland Hills, Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, Encino, Sherman Oaks and Malibu. Body-based trauma work is worth the drive for a lot of people, because somatic and Brainspotting-trained therapists are not on every corner in this part of Los Angeles.

Everything here is also available securely online throughout California, including the Bay Area, Marin, Santa Monica, the South Bay and Orange County. Body-based work does translate to video: we still track sensation, still use bilateral stimulation, still go at your pace. Many of my clients have never been to the office.

Sessions are in English or Hebrew.

Before you call

What if I'm not sure it counts as trauma?

That doubt is extremely common, and it's often part of the picture rather than evidence against it. You don't need a diagnosis or a dramatic story to start. We can work out together what you're carrying.

Do I have to talk about what happened?

Not in detail, and not before you're ready. Brainspotting and Sensorimotor work don't depend on narrating events. A lot of the work happens through the body.

What does it cost?

$250 for 50 minutes, $350 for 80 minutes. The first 25-minute consultation is free. A limited number of sliding-scale places are available.

In person or online?

Both. In person in Calabasas, and securely over Zoom throughout California.

Will talking about it make me feel worse?

That fear is reasonable, and it is why we build capacity before we go anywhere difficult. You get grounding and regulation skills first, we move at a pace you set, and we stop and settle rather than pushing through. Sessions are designed to end with you steady enough to drive home and go back to your day.

How is Brainspotting different from EMDR?

Both work below the level of talking. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation while you hold a specific memory in mind, and suits identifiable events that still feel present. Brainspotting uses a fixed point in your visual field to hold attention while the brain processes what is underneath, and often suits things that feel stuck but are hard to put into words. We can start with one and change.

Can I do this while I am on medication or seeing a psychiatrist?

Yes. Many clients are. Therapy and medication work on different parts of the problem, and with your written permission I am glad to coordinate with your prescriber so you are not the one carrying messages between us.

I have done therapy before and it did not help. Why would this be different?

Often because the earlier work stayed in talking. If the experience is held in the nervous system and the body, insight alone rarely shifts it. We work with the body and with regulation alongside the understanding, and we check in regularly on whether it is actually working rather than assuming it is.

How often do we meet?

Usually weekly to begin, because momentum matters early on. Some people come twice a week during an intense period, and sessions often space out as things steady. We decide together and revisit it.

Is it confidential?

Yes, with the legal limits every California therapist has, which I will go through with you at the start. I am private pay and do not bill insurance, so no diagnosis is submitted to an insurer unless you choose to use a superbill for out-of-network reimbursement.

Ready when you are

Together we'll uncover the roots of what's holding you back, and help you step into a life of confidence, clarity and connection.

Book a free 25-minute call

Or text me on 818-975-0053.

Book a free 25-minute call