Seeking Safety is an evidence-based, integrative treatment approach designed for individuals struggling with both trauma and substance use disorders. It is one of the most widely researched and respected models for treating co-occurring PTSD and addiction.
At My LA Therapy, we provide specialized Seeking Safety therapy in Los Angeles to help individuals develop a deep sense of emotional, psychological, and relational safety — without requiring them to relive past trauma.
The primary goal of Seeking Safety is to help you establish safety in:
• Your relationships
• Your thinking patterns
• Your emotional responses
• Your behaviors
• Your daily life
Safety becomes the foundation for healing.
After experiencing trauma, many people are left feeling vulnerable, overwhelmed, or disconnected from themselves and others. Substances or compulsive behaviors may become a way to cope with:
• Emotional pain
• Fear
• Shame
• Intrusive memories
• Anxiety
• Hypervigilance
• Emotional numbness
Rather than focusing on past traumatic events, Seeking Safety emphasizes the present moment, helping you move forward by restoring stability, comfort, and security in your life today.
This approach allows healing without retraumatization.
Seeking Safety is designed to:
• Increase motivation for recovery
• Clarify the link between trauma and addiction
• Reduce self-destructive behaviors
• Strengthen emotional regulation
• Build coping skills
• Improve relationships
• Create long-term stability
While rooted in humanistic values such as compassion, honesty, and empowerment, Seeking Safety also draws from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Both CBT and Seeking Safety are present-focused approaches that emphasize learning new skills rather than reliving old pain.
Seeking Safety is especially effective for individuals with dual diagnoses, meaning the presence of both:
• Trauma or PTSD
• Substance use disorder
• Addiction
• Behavioral dependency
• Emotional dysregulation
This integrated approach allows clients to address trauma and addiction simultaneously using a blend of:
• Cognitive therapy
• Behavioral therapy
• Interpersonal skill development
• Psychoeducation
• Emotional regulation tools
• Practical life skills
Healing happens on multiple levels — emotional, behavioral, relational, and psychological.
Through the CBT-informed components of Seeking Safety therapy, clients are supported in:
• Identifying harmful thought patterns
• Challenging irrational beliefs
• Understanding core fears
• Interrupting self-destructive behaviors
• Replacing unsafe coping strategies
• Practicing healthier alternatives
Cognitive restructuring helps target beliefs that keep individuals trapped in cycles of fear, avoidance, and addiction.
Small, consistent behavioral steps create long-term transformation.
We’re so confident in our extraordinary therapists that we guarantee you’ll love your match – or your money back.
At My LA Therapy, our highly-vetted Anxiety experts are selected not only for their clinical acumen but for who they are.
Seeking Safety teaches you how to cope safely instead of destructively.
In therapy, you will learn how to:
• Identify safe people
• Ask for support
• Build trust gradually
• Care for your physical health
• Regulate emotions
• Develop self-compassion
• Practice honesty
• Set boundaries
• Engage in self-nurturing behaviors
Safety becomes both internal and external — something you feel inside and create around you.
Seeking Safety can be adapted for:
• Individuals
• Groups
• Adolescents (13+)
• Adults
• Men and women
• Mixed-gender populations
It has been successfully used in:
• Outpatient settings
• Inpatient treatment
• Residential programs
• Community mental health
• Addiction recovery programs
Seeking Safety can be helpful if:
• You have a trauma history
• You struggle with addiction
• You experience emotional dysregulation
• You have not been diagnosed with PTSD but have trauma symptoms
• You use substances to cope
• You want stability before deeper trauma processing
You do not need to meet full diagnostic criteria to benefit.
Seeking Safety is a structured and systematic model proven by research to be effective for trauma and substance abuse treatment.
The program includes 25 core topics, each designed to teach specific coping skills for creating safety and stability.
Sessions follow a consistent structure to promote:
• Predictability
• Containment
• Emotional safety
• Goal-setting
• Skill-building
• Accountability
You and your therapist will collaboratively select topics that best fit your personal goals and current needs.
Topics may include:
• Asking for help
• Healing from anger
• Setting boundaries
• Grounding skills
• Relaxation techniques
• Coping with triggers
• Managing relationships
• Creating meaning
• Honesty
• Self-care
• Emotional regulation
Each topic builds practical skills to help you tolerate distress without turning to substances or unsafe behaviors.
Each session typically includes:
You explore how you are doing and identify current concerns.
You choose a topic that feels most relevant to your life and recovery.
An inspirational quote from Seeking Safety materials is explored for meaning and relevance.
You learn practical coping strategies using handouts and therapist guidance.
The session ends with a “check-out” where you commit to applying your skills outside of therapy.
This structure promotes learning, reflection, and real-world change.
Over time, Seeking Safety can help you:
• Reduce substance use
• Increase emotional stability
• Strengthen relationships
• Improve self-esteem
• Build trust
• Develop resilience
• Experience greater peace
• Feel empowered
• Create sustainable recovery
Rather than reopening wounds, this approach builds a strong foundation for healing and future growth.
At My LA Therapy, our highly-vetted trauma and addiction specialists are selected not only for their clinical expertise, but for their compassion, warmth, and dedication to healing.
We help clients:
• Stabilize
• Feel safe
• Build coping skills
• Address trauma and addiction
• Create meaningful change
• Restore balance
• Reclaim their lives
Healing does not require reliving trauma.
It requires learning how to feel safe again.
Therapist
I am blown away! I don’t write testimonials, unless I have been extremely moved by something. I was blessed to work with Brooke on a single session, and before this I was in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for the last 20 years of my life. Brooke was able to do more in one session than many years of work with my previous therapist. She has the true gift of great insight and compassion while also getting straight to the heart of your blind spots and unconscious issues in a way that has truly changed my life.
Skyler J.
There are people who are good at their work there are people like Brooke: who are born to do it. I cannot recommend Brooke more highly. I can only imagine where I would be today if I had started working with her years ago. From the beginning of our session, she knew exactly what tools and questions that would work for my particular psychology and my personal experience. No other therapist has been able to do that or anything close.
What I also really appreciate from our session is Brooke's ability to go directly to the source of the issue while also keeping a very gentle and kind energy with me. I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Everything and more that I could have ever asked for from a therapist. I have a severe trauma history and complex issues she was able to immediately identify and help. If she could help me, I know she can help you too.
Taylor E.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year.
Jamie
With your help, I've finally started to understand that while my vivid imagination often wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed, in a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of decidedly less-terrifying laundry I've avoided for too long that just needs to be aired out and put away. Which is definitely a lot easier than monster slaying. Thank you for shedding light in the dark places I was too afraid to face alone.
Morgan B.
I am extremely fortunate to work with Sydney, who is helping me create real internal change. The talent to listen well is Hall of Fame stuff, and she has that. She then follows with questions, strategies that are organic to the moment. I have come to believe that deep, radical, if occasionally deeply painful change ... and, then, healing can happen. I'm just at the lip of that last part - but would not have gotten there, AT ALL, without Sydney
Ric K.
The best therapist ever! Life-changing 🙂
Catherine H.
Right now, the work is changing my life, sometimes in inches, sometimes in miles.
Ric K.
