Shay DuBois

I’ve been featured as an expert in National Geographic, Psychology.org, and Parade magazine for my work with trauma, the nervous system, and the mind-body connection.

I help high-performing adults and teens who look “put together” on the outside but feel anxious, numb, overwhelmed, or stuck on the inside.

Many of my clients are people-pleasers, perfectionists, therapists, medical professionals, LGBTQ and trans clients, and adults who grew up with emotionally immature parents.

They’re often carrying complex trauma, phobias, anxiety, attachment wounds, dissociation, freeze, shutdown, and body symptoms that don’t make sense on paper—but make perfect sense to their nervous system.

My “why” is personal. I grew up with a parent who had PTSD and a chronically ill parent whose illness was rooted in trauma.

I learned early that if I could be perfect and keep everyone else okay, maybe things would be safe.

So when you tell me you feel like you have to hold everything together, or that your anxiety and chronic symptoms are running your life, I don’t see someone who’s broken—I see someone who adapted brilliantly to survive.

Clients often describe me as gentle, grounding, funny, insightful, and very body-based. Together, we slow things down and listen to your nervous system with a lot of compassion and zero judgment.

One of my favorite things a client ever told me was: “I thought I was broken, but now I am whole and functioning.”

That’s the kind of shift I hold space for: from self-blame and confusion to understanding what your body and brain have been trying to do for you all along.

My approach brings together compassionate, attachment-focused exploration; deep trauma processing; and nervous-system, body-based healing.

I am certified in Gabor Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry, Brainspotting, Neurofeedback, and Bessel van der Kolk’s Traumatic Stress Studies, and I am in the advanced year of Somatic Experiencing.

I am also trained in EMDR and Certified in Internal Family Systems for Trauma.

In practical terms, this means we can work with:

• The stories and beliefs you carry about yourself and your relationships
• The subcortical layers of trauma and emotion that talk therapy alone can’t always reach
• The nervous system, body, and brain patterns that keep you in anxiety, freeze, or shutdown

Our work is warm and relational, but it’s also grounded in current science about trauma, attachment, the nervous system, and regulation.

Whether you’re dealing with chronic anxiety, somatic symptoms, chronic illness related to trauma, or the long-term impact of emotionally immature caregivers, we’ll move gently and at your pace.

You don’t have to be “the strong one” here. You get to be a human being, not a problem to fix.

Clients take away somatic skills to calm anxiety and effects of trauma.

They have real time solutions to help shift out of panic and back into the present.

We work on their nervous system in deep levels for lasting change.

We are not using a bandaid, we are using techniques that change you deeply and for life.

My clients report they are amazed at how better equipped they are to deal with daily life after working with me.

My clients tell me "for the first time I was able to notice the trigger, and then use my skills to regulate."

That is what it is all about! Getting to the place where you no longer need therapy, but know what is happening and how to deal with it on your own, in a more regulated nervous system.