Trauma Therapy on the Sunshine Coast

Who Trauma Therapy Is For

Trauma therapy for experiences that still shape how you live today

Trauma doesn’t always look the way people expect. Sometimes it’s a single event, an accident, an assault, a deployment. Sometimes it’s the slow accumulation of years of neglect, instability, or relationships that weren’t safe. Either way, trauma therapy gives you a space to process what happened without being overwhelmed by it.

  • PTSD from a single traumatic event
  • Complex trauma (C-PTSD) from ongoing experiences
  • First responder and veteran trauma
  • Childhood and developmental trauma
  • Domestic violence and relational trauma
  • Generational and intergenerational trauma

What Trauma Therapy Addresses

Trauma therapy for every kind of wound, not just the obvious ones

Trauma isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes the most damaging experiences are the ones that were normalised, minimised, or never acknowledged. Trauma therapy helps you understand why you respond the way you do, and gives you a path toward something different.

PTSD & Acute Trauma

A single event that shattered your sense of safety, an accident, assault, natural disaster, combat, or critical incident. PTSD locks your nervous system in survival mode. Trauma therapy helps your brain process what happened so you can stop reliving it.

Complex Trauma & C-PTSD

Not a single event but a pattern, years of abuse, neglect, instability, or living in an environment that was never safe. Complex trauma shapes your identity, your relationships, and your capacity to trust. It requires a different kind of therapy than standard PTSD treatment.

First Responder & Veteran Trauma

Police, paramedics, firefighters, military personnel, nurses, people who run toward danger pay a price that often goes unacknowledged. Stacey served in the military and worked as a paramedic. She understands the culture, the dark humour, and the specific kind of trauma that comes from seeing what you’ve seen.

Domestic Violence & Relational Trauma

The trauma of being harmed by someone who was supposed to be safe. DV recovery involves rebuilding your sense of self, learning to trust your own perceptions again, and understanding how the experience has shaped your relationships going forward.

Developmental & Childhood Trauma

What happened in childhood, or what didn’t happen, shapes how your brain developed. Emotional neglect, inconsistent caregiving, early loss, or growing up in chaos. Developmental trauma often goes unrecognised because there’s no single “event” to point to, but its impact runs deep.

Trauma & Substance Use

Using alcohol, drugs, or other substances to manage the pain of unresolved trauma is common, and it makes sense as a survival strategy. Trauma therapy addresses what’s underneath the coping, so the need for it naturally reduces.

Our Approach

Trauma therapy that works with your whole system, not just your thoughts

Most trauma psychologists on the Sunshine Coast use CBT or EMDR, approaches that target thoughts and memories. These can be effective, but for complex and developmental trauma, they often don’t go deep enough. When trauma has shaped who you are, you need an approach that works with identity, attachment, and the protective parts of you that formed in response.

Stacey uses Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and psychodynamic approaches, modalities specifically designed for the kind of trauma that doesn’t respond to surface-level techniques. IFS works with the different “parts” of your personality that developed to protect you, understanding their roles rather than trying to override them. It’s gentle, non-confrontational, and respects your pacing at every step.

Her background as a soldier and paramedic isn’t just a credential, it means she won’t flinch at what you tell her. She’s sat with the kind of experiences that most therapists have only read about. That changes the dynamic in the room.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Works with the protective “parts” that developed in response to trauma, the inner critic, the people-pleaser, the part that shuts down. IFS helps these parts feel safe enough to let go, allowing healing to happen from the inside out.

Psychodynamic Trauma Therapy

Explores how trauma has shaped your unconscious patterns, the way you relate to others, the beliefs you hold about yourself, the emotional reactions that feel automatic. Deep, lasting change rather than symptom management.

Attachment-Based Work

Trauma disrupts attachment, the fundamental way you connect with others and yourself. Understanding how your attachment system was affected is often the key to healing relational patterns that keep repeating.

Window of Tolerance & Nervous System Regulation

Learning to recognise when your nervous system is in fight, flight, or freeze, and how to widen your capacity to stay present. This is the foundation that makes deeper trauma work possible and safe.

How it Works

How trauma therapy works at Liberty

Trauma therapy is never rushed. You set the pace, and we don’t push you into anything you’re not ready for.

01

Free Discovery Call

A 15-minute phone call to talk about what’s going on and whether trauma therapy is the right approach. You don’t need to share details of your experience on this call, just enough for Stacey to understand what you need. No obligation.

02

Stabilisation & Safety

The first phase of trauma therapy focuses on building safety, in the therapeutic relationship, in your nervous system, and in your daily life. We develop resources and grounding skills before going anywhere near the trauma material itself.

03

Processing & Integration

When you’re ready and only when you’re ready, we begin working with the trauma itself. Using IFS and psychodynamic approaches, we process what happened at a pace that feels manageable, integrating the experience rather than being controlled by it. Available in-person in Buderim or via secure telehealth.

Ready to start trauma therapy with someone who actually gets it?

Book a free 15-minute discovery call with a Sunshine Coast trauma therapist who has lived experience of high-pressure environments. No commitment, just a conversation.

Common Questions

Questions about Trauma therapy

Regular counselling often focuses on present-day concerns and coping strategies. Trauma therapy goes deeper — it works with the way traumatic experiences have shaped your nervous system, your identity, and your relationships. It requires specialist training and a phased approach: stabilisation first, then processing, then integration. Stacey’s IFS and psychodynamic training is specifically designed for this kind of work.

Liberty uses Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and psychodynamic approaches rather than EMDR or CBT. While EMDR is effective for single-event PTSD, Stacey’s approach is designed for the full spectrum of trauma — including complex and developmental trauma where identity, attachment, and relational patterns are affected. IFS is a gentler, parts-based approach that works with your internal protective system rather than targeting specific memories.

Not until you’re ready and sometimes not at all in the way you might expect. Trauma therapy at Liberty isn’t about recounting every detail of what happened. The IFS approach works with the emotional and protective responses that formed around the trauma, which means healing can happen without re-traumatisation. You always control the pace.

Yes and this is one of Stacey’s specialist areas. Her own service as a soldier and paramedic means she understands the culture, the operational environment, and the specific kind of trauma that comes from those roles. She won’t flinch at what you tell her, and she understands why asking for help can feel like the hardest part. You don’t need a DVA referral to access therapy at Liberty, though DVA and Open Arms referrals can be discussed.