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Stephanie Gross

Stephanie Gross

Pasadena Trauma Therapist

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Hello, I’m Stephanie. I’m a trauma therapist who helps individuals and couples heal from painful experiences, reconnect with themselves, and build relationships that feel safe, genuine, and alive again.

My work is especially grounded in supporting individuals and couples navigating PTSD, complex trauma, dissociative disorders (DID/OSDD), ritual abuse and trafficking, attachment wounds, betrayal trauma, and relational challenges – including discernment counseling for partners who are unsure about the future of their relationship and are in need of guidance and clarity.

I also have a deep passion for working with performers, professionals, and healers– people who hold space for others or live creative, high-pressure lives, and are ready to turn that same care inward. I’m equally drawn to working with those exploring psychedelic integration, whether you’re preparing for a journey or making sense of what surfaced afterward. Together, we’ll help you weave those insights into your daily life in a grounded, embodied, and meaningful way.

I’m a Certified Brainspotting Practitioner and Consultant, and I’ve witnessed how deeply healing this process can be—often without needing to retell painful stories. Brainspotting is a somatic therapy that uses eye position to access the part of the brain where trauma is stored, helping your body and mind process what’s been stuck and find relief.

Simply put, “where you look affects how you feel.” By locating the eye position connected to emotion, we can gently support your nervous system in releasing old patterns and creating space for calm, clarity, and healing. For fellow Brainspotting practitioners, I offer consultation to help you deepen your practice, build confidence with complex cases, and work toward certification with clarity and support.

I believe therapy is a unique collaboration- a space where we slow down, listen deeply to your system, and trust your body’s natural capacity to heal. My style is warm, intuitive, and relational, blending evidence-based methods with a deep respect for the inner wisdom that already lives within you.

I want therapy to feel like a place where you can exhale- a space of warmth, honesty, and care. Healing isn’t about fixing what’s “wrong” with you; it’s about coming home to who you truly are, with all your parts welcome.

Together, we’ll work toward helping you feel more connected, confident, creative, and at peace– in yourself and in your relationships.

Schedule a Consultation with Stephanie Gross

All modalities are very effective in treating traumas.

IFS is a therapeutic model that views the mind as composed of different “parts,” each with its own roles, emotions, and perspectives, and a core “Self” that is calm, compassionate, and capable of healing. IFS helps individuals understand and harmonize their internal system by addressing protective parts (managers and firefighters) and wounded parts (exiles), fostering greater self-awareness and emotional healing.

Brainspotting is a somatic therapy that helps clients access the subcortical (non-verbal) part of the brain, where trauma is typically stored. According to the creator of Brainspotting, David Grand, “Where you look affects how you feel.” Since our eyes give us access to the subcortical brain, Brainspotting uses the visual field as a way to help release stored memories. If you’d like more information on Brainspotting, please click here.

The T.R.I.P approach involves working with trauma and its impact on the person as a whole. This approach recognizes that frequently memories are implicit and stored at a body level. The assumption of T.R.I.P is that the body, brain, emotions, beliefs, sensations, and relationships need both regulation and integration for the person to feel alive, and live in the present.

The T.R.I.P model has been influenced by the ideas, theories, concepts, and practices of the following therapies and seeks to integrate key aspects of each of these therapies:

  1. OEI – One Eye Integration/Observed & Experiential Integration
  2. IFS – Internal Family Systems
  3. SP/SE – Sensorimotor Psychotherapy/Somatic Experiencing
  4. EFT – Emotionally Focused Therapy
  5. Developmental Attachment theory – Dr, G. Neufeld (Neufeld institute)

EFT/EFIT assists individuals and couples in exploring and identifying automatic negative cycles of interactions that lead to distress and disconnection in relationships. EFT considers each partner’s attachment styles and helps to identify underlying emotions that trigger the automatic negative cycles.

Mapping the automatic negative cycles, and identifying and expressing underlying soft emotions helps couples gain a deeper understanding of themselves, their partner, and the relationship. Couples will also learn how to navigate challenging situations and authentically express their emotions in ways that create connection and trust.

Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO)—an IFS-based approach that helps partners move from defensiveness and disconnection toward emotional safety and understanding. IFIO helps couples slow down, communicate from the heart, and rebuild trust and intimacy after trauma or betrayal. IFIO is a powerful, heart-centered approach to couples therapy developed by Toni Herbine-Blank and based on Internal Family Systems (IFS). At its core, IFIO helps couples create emotional safety, deepen understanding, and move from reactive patterns into compassionate connection.

How IFIO Benefits Couples

  • Builds emotional safety: Partners learn to create a space where both people feel safe enough to be honest and open.

  • Transforms conflict into understanding: Instead of reacting to each other’s triggers, you learn to recognize and tend to what’s happening beneath them.

  • Fosters self-awareness: You’ll get to know the parts of you that show up in your relationship—your protectors, critics, caretakers, or avoiders—and learn how they’re trying (often unsuccessfully) to help you stay safe.

  • Deepens intimacy and trust: As defenses soften and genuine vulnerability emerges, couples often experience new levels of closeness, compassion, and connection.

  • Supports trauma healing in relationships: IFIO is especially helpful for couples where one or both partners have a trauma history. It provides a framework for navigating emotional intensity without re-enacting old wounds.

 

Discernment Counseling is a unique approach to counseling that can last between 1-5 sessions. DC specifically helps couples arrive at a greater clarity and confidence in their decision-making about the future of their relationship based on a deeper understanding of the problems in the relationship and the ways each person contributes.

Dissociative disorders involve a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity. They often stem from trauma and can manifest in various forms such as amnesia, fugue states, and identity fragmentation. Treatments include phases of establishing safety, processing traumatic memories, and integration or functional integration of identity parts.

Additional Trainings
  • Internal Family System (IFS) Level 1
  • Brainspotting Certified
    • Phase 1 & 2 with Lisa Larson, LMFT
    • Expansion Brainspotting with Lisa Larson, LMFT
    • Freeze to Thaw: Unlocking Trauma in the Body with Mary Jane O’Rourke, Serene Calkins
    • Brainspotting Couples Co-regulating with Cherie Lindberg, LMFT
    • Brainspotting and Parts Work with Cherie Lindberg, LMFT
  • Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) Externship with Nancy Gardner, PhD
  • Healing The Trauma That Surrounds Medical Syndromes with IFS by Dr. Lisa Rankin and Dr. Dick Schwartz
  • Trauma Healing: Energy, Neuroscience and Spirituality with IFS by Dr. Frank Anderson
  • Embracing our Legacy Burdens and Heirlooms Workshop by Osnat Arbel, PhD
  • Janina Fisher’s Trauma Treatment Certification Training (CCTP)
  • Working with Childhood Sexual Trauma with Cristina Mardirossian, LMFT
  • Working With Dissociative Identity Disorder Parts 1 & 2 with Cristina Mardirossian, LMFT
  • The Gottman Method Level 1 & 2
  • California State University Fullerton – Bachelor’s degree in Psychology
  • California State University Fullerton – Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy

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