You're functioning. Maybe even functioning well, by most measures. You go to work. You handle what needs handling. From the outside, you look fine.
But something happened. And life has felt different since.
Maybe you know exactly what it is. Maybe you've never said it out loud to another person. Maybe you've been carrying it so long it just feels like who you are now — the hypervigilance, the way certain sounds or smells take you somewhere you don't want to go, the exhaustion that has nothing to do with how much you slept. The part of you that never fully lands back in the present.
You are not broken. Your nervous system did exactly what it was built to do. It protected you. And it never got the signal that it was safe to stop.
That signal is what we work on together.
Therapy for People Who Are Ready for Deeper Change
You may be successful in your career, thoughtful about your personal growth, and familiar with therapy—yet still find yourself reacting in ways you don't fully understand.
My work is designed for adults who want to move beyond simply understanding their patterns and begin changing how they experience stress, relationships, and their own bodies.
Through Somatic Experiencing and other evidence-informed approaches, we work collaboratively and at a pace that respects your needs. This is ongoing therapeutic work, not simply an occasional check-in. Session frequency is discussed together based on your goals and clinical needs.
Hi! I'm Jennifer Goggin, LPC, LMHC, SEP. You can call me Jen. I'm a licensed psychotherapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. For the past twenty years, I've worked with people carrying deep and complex trauma, including first responders, nurses and physicians, veterans, 9/11 survivors, survivors of religious and institutional abuse, and people who have experienced painful events they have never felt comfortable putting into words. I offer secure virtual therapy throughout Florida and Connecticut.
"You don't have to retell it in detail. You don't have to perform your pain for me to understand what you're carrying. The body already knows. That's where we start."
Understanding the Condition
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder develops when something overwhelming happens and the nervous system cannot fully process and integrate it. Not because you're weak. Not because you didn't handle it right. Because what happened exceeded what any nervous system could absorb without help.
PTSD is not a character flaw. It is not a sign that you're not tough enough, not resilient enough, not professional enough to handle what the job required. It is a neurobiological response to genuine threat. It can affect people from all walks of life, including those who never expected to experience trauma or identify their experiences as traumatic. It develops after:
Combat exposure — Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, and every conflict in between and since
The work of first response — what firefighters, paramedics, and law enforcement absorb over years of being the person who runs toward what everyone else runs from
What doctors and nurses witness and carry, especially in emergency, critical care, and pandemic conditions
Being at or near the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 — or losing someone who was
Sexual assault, intimate partner violence, or childhood abuse
Religious or institutional abuse — including what happens when the person who harmed you was someone who was supposed to be safe, and the institution closed ranks around protecting itself
Sudden loss, accidents, or medical emergencies
Chronic or repeated exposure to distressing experiences over time, which can contribute to complex PTSD (C-PTSD).
Many people I work with don't walk in using clinical language. They walk in knowing something is wrong, and that they haven't been able to fix it on their own.
Intrusion: Flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive memories that arrive without warning or invitation. The body responding to something that isn't happening anymore as if it is.
Avoidance: Steering away from people, places, conversations, or feelings connected to what happened. Sometimes the avoidance is so practiced it doesn't feel like avoidance anymore. It just feels like how you live.
Negative mood and cognition: Persistent shame, self-blame, emotional numbness, disconnection from the people around you, a sense that something fundamental has shifted in how you see yourself or the world.
Hyperarousal: Difficulty sleeping, an exaggerated startle response, a body that reads the environment for threat even when the rational mind knows you're safe. The nervous system stuck in alert.
THE PEOPLE I WORK WITH
You May Not Call It PTSD
The firefighter who's been in the job fifteen years and doesn't talk about what he's seen. The ER nurse who started drinking more after COVID and can't fully explain why. The Vietnam veteran who came home to nothing — no acknowledgment, no support, no one who wanted to hear what it was actually like — and has been carrying 1968 in his body ever since. The Gulf War vet. The Marine back from Fallujah. The soldier who did three tours in Afghanistan and feels more danger at the grocery store than he ever wants to admit.
The 9/11 survivor who was in the building, or who ran toward it, or who watched it from a rooftop in Brooklyn and has never felt entirely safe since. Perhaps you lost someone that day and you still feel haunted by it all.
The person who was abused by a priest, a pastor, a coach, a teacher — someone trusted — and then watched the institution protect itself while they were left to figure out alone what to do with what happened. The shame in that particular wound is layered. You were harmed by someone who was supposed to embody safety. Then you were made to feel like the problem. That is its own kind of trauma, and it deserves to be named as such.
The physician who has pronounced more deaths than she can count and was never once asked how she was doing.
What connects these experiences is not that every story is the same, but that their effects can continue to be felt in the body, emotions, and nervous system long after the event has passed.
THE APPROACH
Working with the Nervous System
One of the things that sets PTSD apart is how deeply it's encoded in the body. The tightening in the chest before a difficult conversation. The way a sound or a smell can take you somewhere you thought you'd left. The activation that arrives even when your mind knows you're safe.
Talking about what happened can be useful. But for many trauma survivors — especially those who've been in insight-based therapy for years — narrating the experience activates the same nervous system response as the original event. The brain floods. The body braces. The understanding doesn't become relief.
Somatic Experiencing works with how trauma can be experienced in the body and nervous system, including patterns of activation, bracing, and shutdown that may persist long after an overwhelming event. I've held the SEP credential since 2007, through Somatic Experiencing International.
SE does not require you to retell your story in detail. It tracks what's happening in your body right now — the sensations, the bracing, the activation, the shutdown — and gently guides the nervous system through what it never got to complete.
SE tends to be especially helpful for people who:
Have spent years in therapy, understand their patterns intellectually, and still can't shift them
Carry significant physical symptoms alongside the emotional ones
Feel disconnected from their bodies or have difficulty feeling safe in their own physical experience
Have early or developmental trauma that predates language
Find that talking about traumatic experiences can sometimes leave them feeling more activated, and want an approach that also attends to bodily sensations and nervous-system responses.
I draw on SE alongside CBT, psychodynamic work, and parts-based approaches. What serves your nervous system at this particular time is what we use.
"Twenty years in, what I know is this: the story matters, and the body has been trying to tell a version of it the whole time. When those two things finally meet, that's when something shifts."
The Process
What to Expect in PTSD Therapy
The first session is a conversation. Not an interrogation of your history. We talk about what brings you here, what you've tried, and what you need. There is no pressure to share more than feels right.
Building safety is not a preliminary step before the real work begins. It is the work.
From there, sessions unfold at a pace that matches your nervous system's capacity. Progress in trauma therapy rarely looks linear. You may feel lighter after some sessions and more stirred up after others. That is part of the process, not a sign something is wrong.
Sessions are 55 minutes. I offer a free 15-minute consultation so you can share what you're looking for and see if my approach resonates.
01 | Tracking body sensations
We learn to notice what trauma actually feels like in your body — without amplifying it or suppressing it. Awareness before action.
02 | Titration
We work with small, manageable pieces of what's difficult rather than flooding your system. Healing happens in increments the nervous system can tolerate.
03 | Pendulation
We move between activation and settling so your nervous system learns it can return to calm. The capacity to regulate expands from here.
04 | Completing interrupted responses
We gently explore protective responses that may have been interrupted during an overwhelming experience. Together, we notice what arises in your body and work at a pace that feels manageable, supporting greater regulation and a sense of completion.
05 | Building resilience
Building resilience We gradually expand your window of tolerance so more of life feels manageable and safe. Healing is not the absence of difficulty. It's having more room to meet it.
What Becomes Possible on the Other Side
There is something that happens in trauma work that doesn't get talked about enough. Not just the reduction of symptoms. Not just feeling less bad. Something that looks, over time, like genuine transformation.
Researchers call it post-traumatic growth. Over twenty years, I've seen people who once felt deeply stuck discover new possibilities for connection, purpose, and a different relationship with themselves.
It doesn't mean the trauma didn't happen. It doesn't mean what you went through was okay, or that you'd choose it. It means that the process of surviving something that hard — and then actually healing from it, rather than just managing it — can open something in a person that nothing else does.
People describe it differently. A clarity about what actually matters. Relationships that feel more real than they did before. A relationship with their own body they never had. A sense of purpose that emerged directly from the wound. The veteran who becomes the person other veterans finally talk to. The nurse who finds she can be present with patients in a way she couldn't access before. The survivor of religious abuse who builds a spiritual life that actually belongs to her.
Post-traumatic growth is not guaranteed. It is not a stage you pass through automatically if you do the work. But it is real. It is more common than the clinical literature used to acknowledge. And in my experience, it becomes available when the nervous system finally gets to put down what it's been carrying.
You came in to feel better. That's enough. But better is sometimes just the beginning of what's possible.
POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH
C-PTSD: When Trauma Is Chronic or Developmental
Complex PTSD develops from prolonged, repeated, or relational trauma — the kind that happened inside relationships where escape was limited or impossible. Childhood neglect. Domestic violence. Emotional unavailability. Environments where love was conditional or safety was unpredictable. Religious or institutional abuse that went on for years, often hidden, often without anyone who believed you.
This is the territory where a single-incident model doesn't capture the full picture.
Beyond the core PTSD symptoms, C-PTSD often brings:
Profound difficulty with emotion regulation
Deep shame, self-blame, or a sense of being fundamentally broken
Disruptions in relationships and attachment
Difficulty maintaining a stable sense of who you are
Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is recognized in the ICD-11, although it is not a separate diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR. Treatment may involve a longer-term, relational approach that emphasizes safety, stabilization, and pacing before deeper trauma processing. Complex trauma is a primary focus of my practice.
If your trauma history is complex, early, or relational, a somatic and relationally attuned approach may be a helpful part of treatment, alongside other evidence-informed methods tailored to your needs.
Get Started
You Don't Have to Keep Carrying This
Whatever you've been through, and however long you've been carrying it, healing is possible. I've seen this across twenty years with people whose trauma was fresh and people whose trauma was decades old. The nervous system has a genuine capacity to heal. You deserve support that actually meets where you are.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Frequently Asked Questions About PTSD Therapy in Florida & Connecticut
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Several therapies can help people recover from PTSD, including Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure. Somatic Experiencing offers a body-oriented approach that focuses on nervous system responses, sensations, and building a greater capacity to feel safe and regulated.
Which approach is right for you depends on your history, symptoms, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped before. As a trauma therapist, I work collaboratively with you to find an approach that fits your needs. A free 15-minute consultation is a good place to start.
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The length of PTSD therapy depends on your history, symptoms, goals, and the nature of the trauma you've experienced. Some people notice meaningful changes within a few months, while complex or developmental trauma may call for longer-term work. Progress is rarely linear, and we move at a pace that respects your capacity and needs. We'll regularly check in on what's changing and what support would be most helpful.
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Somatic Experiencing is a body-centered approach to trauma therapy developed by Dr. Peter Levine. Rather than requiring you to analyze or retell what happened in detail, Somatic Experiencing helps you notice and work with the body's responses to trauma — the tension, shutdown, or persistent activation that can remain long after an event has passed.
Together, we pay attention to these responses gradually, at a pace your nervous system can manage. Over time, this work can help you develop greater capacity to regulate stress, feel more connected to your body, and respond to life with more flexibility. You don't have to tell your entire story for us to begin.
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Many people come to therapy with a deep understanding of their patterns, yet still find themselves reacting in ways they can't seem to change. Insight matters, but sometimes understanding why something happens isn't enough to change how it feels in your body.
If you've spent years doing personal work and still feel stuck, Somatic Experiencing offers another way to approach healing. We pay attention to the nervous system responses that may be contributing to those patterns, working gradually and collaboratively rather than relying on insight alone.
This doesn't mean the work you've done before was wasted. It means there may be another piece of the picture worth exploring. Together, we can discover what approach best supports where you are now.
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Yes. Many people benefit from trauma-focused therapy without medication. Medication may also be helpful for some people, particularly when symptoms of depression or anxiety are present. Decisions about medication are made with a prescribing physician or other qualified prescriber based on your individual needs. Medication is not a prerequisite for beginning therapy.
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Yes. I've worked with veterans, including people who served during Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Military trauma can carry its own culture — the expectation that you handle it, the reluctance to be seen as struggling, and the sense that asking for help says something about your strength.
You don't have to explain everything perfectly or prove how much you've endured to be understood here. We work collaboratively and at a pace that respects your experience. You don't have to perform toughness in this room.
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Sessions are $200 for 55 minutes and are provided on an out-of-network basis. A superbill is available for you to submit to your insurance company for potential reimbursement. Reimbursement depends on your plan's out-of-network mental health benefits and is not guaranteed.
I recommend contacting your insurance provider before your first session to understand your benefits and any requirements for reimbursement.
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Both are treatable. My work has a particular focus on complex and developmental trauma, including the ways early experiences can continue to affect relationships, emotional regulation, and a person's sense of self.
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A formal diagnosis requires evaluation by a licensed clinician. Common signs include intrusive memories or flashbacks, avoiding anything connected to the experience, emotional numbness or disconnection, difficulty sleeping, and a persistent sense of hypervigilance or danger. If something happened and life has felt different since — even if you've never named it, even if it was a long time ago — speaking with a trauma-specialized therapist is the right first step.
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Look for a therapist who is licensed in your state and has specific training and experience in treating trauma. Specialized credentials, such as the SEP (Somatic Experiencing Practitioner) designation, reflect additional training in a body-oriented approach to trauma.
Equally important is finding someone whose approach feels right for you. Trauma therapy depends on a strong therapeutic relationship and a sense of safety. I offer a free 15-minute consultation so we can discuss what you're looking for, answer your questions, and see whether my approach feels like a good fit.
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Yes. I work with firefighters, paramedics, law enforcement professionals, ER nurses, physicians, and others who carry the impact of trauma as part of their work — often while feeling pressure to keep going.
The culture that makes you good at the work can also make it hard to seek help. I understand that. In therapy, you don't have to minimize what you've experienced or keep holding everything together. We can work at a pace that respects both your professional demands and your needs as a person.
Jennifer Goggin, LPC, LMHC, SEP, is a licensed psychotherapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner with over 20 years of clinical experience specializing in PTSD and complex trauma. She has held the SEP credential since 2007 and helps clients work with nervous system responses that can persist after overwhelming experiences, without requiring detailed retelling of their trauma. Her practice draws on Somatic Experiencing, CBT, and attachment-focused therapy, with a particular focus on C-PTSD and developmental trauma. She works with adults who want to move beyond understanding their patterns and toward meaningful, lasting change. Jennifer offers secure virtual therapy throughout Florida and Connecticut.