Clinical Practice
Integrative, Trauma-Responsive Psychotherapy
Salus Collaborative offers integrative, trauma-responsive psychotherapy for individuals seeking greater well-being, resilience, and connection while navigating life's challenges, transitions, and healing. Our approach honors each person's existing strengths and capacities while creating the conditions for meaningful, sustainable change.
Services are provided virtually and are available to Arizona residents.
Areas of Focus
- Trauma recovery
- Addiction and substance use
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Emotional regulation
- Grief and loss
- Life transitions
- Relationship conflict
- Chronic pain
- Somatic healing
- Parts work
- Psychedelic integration
- Self-regulation
- Psychoeducation
Therapeutic Approaches
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
- IFS (Internal Family Systems/parts work)
- Narrative and person-centered approaches
- Harm reduction
- Trauma-informed yoga
- Somatic practices
- Breathwork
- Meditation
- Polyvagal-informed care
Integrating Ancient Wisdom with Modern Somatic Healing
Healing has never belonged exclusively to the mind. Long before modern neuroscience began exploring the relationship between the brain, body, nervous system, and human connection, healing traditions across cultures recognized the importance of breath, movement, rhythm, relationship, community, ritual, and embodied awareness.
Today, advances in trauma research, neuroscience, and somatic psychology are helping Western behavioral healthcare more fully appreciate what many wisdom traditions have long understood: our experiences live not only in the stories we tell, but also in the ways our bodies learn to protect, adapt, connect, and respond.
At Salus Collaborative, therapy integrates both top-down and bottom-up approaches to healing. Cognitive insight and meaning-making remain valuable, while body awareness, nervous system regulation, movement, mindfulness, and experiential practices can provide additional pathways for healing — particularly when words alone are not enough.
This approach begins by helping clients develop greater awareness, resources, and capacity for regulation. From that foundation, therapy can support deeper exploration and processing while honoring each person's pace, autonomy, strengths, and innate capacity for healing and transformation. The relationship between therapist and client is also used as a way to support co-regulation, connection, and attunement.
Many of the embodied and contemplative practices that inform this work have roots in ancient wisdom traditions, including Indian and African traditions. We approach these teachings with respect for their origins, gratitude for those who have carried them forward, and humility about the difference between learning from a tradition and claiming ownership of it.
The goal is not to choose between ancient wisdom and modern science, mind and body, or insight and experience, but to create more pathways through which healing can occur.
What is TraumAddiction®?
Treating trauma and addiction simultaneously is essential because both conditions are deeply intertwined, sharing common roots in dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), or dysautonomia. Both trauma and addiction can be seen as responses to overwhelming experiences, where the individual's nervous system remains in a chronic state of perceiving threat. This dysregulation drives individuals toward substances or behaviors that temporarily alleviate distress but ultimately reinforce harmful cycles of avoidance and dependence.
Addiction as a Traumatic Response
Addiction is often traumagenic, meaning it frequently develops as a response to trauma. A person experiencing high levels of distress might turn to addictive substances or behaviors to escape unbearable emotional pain. Even when the negative consequences of addiction become clear, the ongoing distress compels individuals to continue these behaviors, despite the harm they cause. The pursuit of relief through addiction, despite diminishing pleasure and increased life impairment, reflects the chronic pain and dysregulation trauma survivors endure.
Interconnected Patterns of Intrusion, Arousal, and Avoidance
This chart (adapted from: Gentry, E., Menna, A., and Scofield, M., 2004) illustrates the cyclical patterns of trauma and addiction:
Intrusion
Traumatic sensory cues—thoughts, feelings, sensations, sounds, or smells—intrude into the present moment, bringing past pain back to life.
Arousal
These intrusions trigger heightened arousal in the nervous system, leading to feelings of threat, hypervigilance, muscle tension, and an increase in energy.
Avoidance
To escape this arousal, individuals often turn to substances or behaviors that numb or distract from the distress, creating a short-term sense of relief but reinforcing a long-term pattern of avoidance.
The Role of Treatment
Effective trauma and addiction treatment requires establishing a therapeutic alliance, providing clients with self-regulation skills, and offering psychoeducation. By understanding how their nervous system works, clients can begin to interrupt these cycles. Inviting clients to set intentions for who they wish to be between stimulus and response empowers them to make conscious choices rather than reacting from a place of dysregulation. This approach is based on work from J. Eric Gentry PhD, LMHC, DAAETS, founder of the Forward-Facing Freedom model.
Both trauma and addiction are progressive, debilitating, and potentially fatal if left untreated. The interruption of the threat response through self-regulation and connection is crucial to recovery. With a regulated ANS, individuals no longer need external agents to cope, leading to a healthier, more autonomous life.
Reference: Gentry, J. E., Menna, A., & Scofield, M. (2004). Trauma addiction: Safety and stabilization for the addicted survivor of trauma. The Gift from Within. 1–30. Retrieved from http://www.giftfromwithin.org/html/safety.html
Have Questions?
Download the Therapy Q&A Guide for answers to common questions about getting started, what to expect, and how the process works.
Therapy Q&A Guide (PDF)Fees & Services
| Service | Duration | Fee |
|---|---|---|
Virtual Initial Intake Evaluation | 60 minutes | $160 |
Virtual Counseling | 50 minutes | $150 |
Virtual Counseling Intensive | 90 minutes | $275 |
Yoga for Addiction Recovery Group Virtual · Ages 18+ · Six-week series | 75 minutes | $55 |
Insurance: Salus Collaborative accepts all major credit cards, Health Savings Account (HSA) payments, and cash. Insurance is not currently accepted. Payment is due at the time of service.
Availability: Clinical services are virtual and available to clients in Arizona. Individual therapy is available to clients ages 13 and older where clinically appropriate.
Good Faith Estimate: You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate of expected charges. Learn more.
Ready to Begin?
Reach out to request a consultation. We'll connect to discuss your needs and whether Salus Collaborative is a good fit.
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