Dr. Pria Alpern

01/10/2026

“The idea that therapy can be sealed off from politics is fiction. Therapy happens in a body, and that body lives in a society. As our society shifts in visible and frightening ways, insisting on apolitical distance doesn’t make the therapy safer, in fact, it just makes your client feel more alone.”

01/09/2026

“Complex trauma is organized around adaptation, which means that survivors may look “fine” on the outside while living in bodies shaped by chronic threat. Sarah* was one of those clients. She talked about her father’s abuse as if she was reading the weather report. She walked through her daily life not feeling real. She looked steady on the outside, but that steadiness was scaffolding her system for survival.”

Complex trauma is organized around adaptation, which means that survivors may look “fine” on the outside while living in bodies shaped by chronic threat.

01/04/2026

01/03/2026

“The political climate of the past decade has conditioned us to brace. I, along with many of you, have trained myself to expect disappointment and to assume that any flicker of hope I feel inside will quickly be snuffed out by a domineering force. That’s why I felt an exhale I didn’t realize I’d been holding for ten years as I watched Zohran Mamdani give his inauguration speech yesterday. Many New Yorkers felt it, too, and it’s not because he promised an easy future or resolved the past decade of damage. His speech offered a brief reprieve from a long stretch of psychic wear and tear.”

01/01/2026

“What if some forms of dissociation are not about protecting against overwhelming emotion at all? I recently read a 2025 paper by Anne Alvarez titled Dissociation: Defense and/or Deficit in the Making of a Pseudo Self, and what struck me is how Alvarez describes a group of people who often “do well” in therapy by conventional standards, but something doesn’t quite land. These folks are articulate and reflective, yet the work falls flat. Sessions depict engagement without aliveness.” Read the rest on my Substack

12/13/2025

✨My dream team✨ I’m filled with gratitude this holiday season as I prepare to close out another year with these incredibly talented and caring psychologists by my side (and Crystal!). The people you work with really make the job ❤️

12/10/2025

I’ll be holding EMDR office Hrs (drop in consultation) next Thursday for basic trained therapists - feel free to join! Register below

EMDR Office Hours (12/18/25, 4-6pm ET, virtual). Join this 2-hour group consultation to deepen your EMDR practice, connect with peers, and receive consultation credit toward EMDRIA requirements.

12/10/2025

“Most people think they know what trauma looks like. Pop psychology often conceives it as a singular incident that knocked a person’s world off its axis. A shocking event with a distinct “before” and “after.” Think car accidents, school shootings, and natural disasters. As a trauma therapist and fellow human, I can attest that those types traumatic experiences are real and deserve attention. They also represent a sliver of the broader landscape within the vast trauma field.” Read the rest on Substack

12/04/2025

✨New up on my substack✨ “For many readers, the piece will land like an invitation toward repair and emotional maturity. But for trauma survivors, its framing reinforces the same narratives that kept them in harm’s way for years. And for clinicians, the article raises a deeper ethical problem as it collapses all forms of estrangement into the same moral category.”

12/02/2025

“There is something unsavory about seeing an eight-figure book deal land in the lap of an eighty-two-year-old white man. It’s less about the size of the advance than it is about the way power concentrates itself in the hands of paternalistic figures who already dominate the trauma field. Having been centered in the literature for decades, they overshadow others who are doing more nuanced, community-rooted work.”

There is something unsavory about seeing an eight-figure book deal land in the lap of an eighty-two-year-old white man.

12/01/2025

“There is something unsavory about seeing an eight-figure book deal land in the lap of an eighty-two-year-old white man. It’s less about the size of the advance than it is about the way power concentrates itself in the hands of paternalistic figures who already dominate the trauma field. Having been centered in the literature for decades, they overshadow others who are doing more nuanced, community-rooted work.” - read the rest on my Substack

12/01/2025

Therapists and therapists in training: Come to my next Trauma Study Group on 12/12/25 from 2-3pm et on zoom! This study group focuses on Ogden’s Chapter 8: Principles of Treatment from Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy.

Trauma Study Group w/Dr. Pria Alpern *This study group focuses on Ogden’s Chapter 8: Principles of Treatment from Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy.