Boca Raton · Florida
Trauma therapy in Boca Raton, FL
Trauma therapy with an AASECT-certified specialist, for individuals and couples in Boca Raton and across Boca Raton and south Palm Beach County.
Trauma therapy in Boca Raton treats the lasting effects of frightening or violating experience — hypervigilance, numbness, intrusive memory, and the way intimacy and sex often carry the cost. The work is paced by you, held by secure video, and the first 15-minute consultation is free.
Who you would be working with
Vanessa Cushing, LPC, NCC, MS — AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist, MS from Johns Hopkins University. Fewer than one in a thousand licensed therapists in the United States hold AASECT certification.
If this is the year you deal with it, start with a conversation rather than a commitment.
Why Boca Raton clients come here
Boca clients often arrive after a long stretch of managing a sexual problem as a medical one — a urologist, a prescription, a normal result and no plan. The couples work here frequently involves a second or third marriage and the sexual comparisons that come with it.
Boca Raton sits inside Boca Raton and south Palm Beach County, and the practical problem is supply rather than demand: there are very few AASECT-certified clinicians in the region, and most general therapists list intimacy as one interest among twenty. That gap is why this work is done by video for clients across Florida rather than out of a single office.
What trauma therapy treats
- Sexual assault, coercion and boundary violation, recent or decades old
- Childhood sexual, physical or emotional abuse
- Sexual difficulty that traces back to something that happened, not to anything wrong with your body
- Dissociation, freezing or leaving your body during sex
- Hypervigilance, startle, sleep disruption and intrusive memory
- Medical and birth trauma, including procedures that were experienced as violating
- Betrayal trauma after infidelity or discovered deception
- Shame that has been carried privately for years without being said out loud
How the work is structured
- Stabilisation first. Before any detailed account of what happened, the work is on capacity — sleep, grounding, what to do when the reaction arrives. Going faster than that re-injures people, which is why some previous therapy has made clients feel worse.
- You decide what gets told, and when. There is no requirement to narrate the event to be treated.
- Parts-based and IFS-informed work, then a gradual return to intimacy and sex where that is part of the picture — at a pace you set, with an explicit right to stop.
Pacing is the treatment. Nothing is pushed, no account is required, and the explicit right to stop or slow down is part of the frame rather than a concession.
Sessions, privacy and location
Because the licence is state-wide, anyone physically located in Florida at the time of the session can be seen — Key West to Pensacola — without travelling to Miami.
There is no in-person office in Boca Raton. Sessions are held by secure, HIPAA-compliant video — which is how the majority of this practice's clients are seen, by preference rather than necessity. No waiting room, no drive across Boca Raton and south Palm Beach County, and the exercises get practised at home where they belong.
Also available in Boca Raton
- Sex therapy in Boca Raton — sexual difficulty specifically
- Couples therapy in Boca Raton — the pattern between you
Nearby in Florida
- Trauma therapy in Palm Beach — Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Jupiter
- Trauma therapy in Naples — Naples, Bonita Springs and Collier County
- Trauma therapy in Coral Gables — Coral Gables, Coconut Grove and Miami-Dade
Worth reading first
- Trauma therapy across Florida
- What sex therapy actually is
- AASECT-certified vs. non-certified
- Does insurance cover therapy like this?
- Out-of-network benefits, explained
Questions Boca Raton clients ask
Do you see clients in Boca Raton?
Yes. Vanessa Cushing is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in the State of Florida, so anyone physically located in Florida at the time of the session can be seen — Boca Raton included, along with Delray Beach, Highland Beach, Parkland. Sessions are held by secure video; there is no office in Boca Raton, and that is stated plainly rather than implied otherwise.
What does the free consultation involve?
Booking is a free 15-minute consultation, held by video, with no obligation to continue. You will speak with Vanessa directly rather than an intake coordinator, and you can ask about fees, confidentiality and whether Boca Raton residents are seen before committing to anything.
Do I have to describe what happened?
No. Plenty of effective trauma work happens without a detailed account. What is needed is your read on how it still affects you now. If and when you want to say more, that becomes possible rather than required.
Why see someone who is also a sex therapist?
Because the sexual consequences of trauma are where most general trauma therapy stops, and most sex therapy is not trauma-trained. Holding both means you do not have to split the problem across two clinicians who each treat half of it.
Do you take insurance?
This is an out-of-network practice. Superbills are provided on request and many plans reimburse a share of the fee under out-of-network benefits; the insurance guide walks through how to check yours before your first session. Fees are discussed openly in the free consultation.
How private is this?
Sessions are held over a HIPAA-compliant video platform, records are kept to the clinical minimum, and nothing is disclosed to an employer, an insurer you have not billed, or anyone else without your written authorisation. This comes up constantly with Boca Raton clients and it is a fair question to ask in detail during the consultation.
Trauma therapy in Boca Raton starts with a free 15-minute consultation with Vanessa — not an intake form, not a waiting list.