Meet Chadley, LCSW, LMFT
Hi, I’m Chadley (she/her), a licensed trauma therapist and childhood trauma specialist helping you heal from the past, reclaim your agency, and disentangle the legacy of trauma from the life and relationships you want to build today.
Trauma Therapist in Denver and Virtually Across Colorado, Rhode Island, and Indiana
Trauma Therapist in Denver and Virtually Across Colorado, Rhode Island, and Indiana
A Relational Therapist Who Gets It
The Heart Behind
My Work
My work with childhood trauma and anxiety is personal to me. These experiences have shaped my own life and relationships, and I’ve also experienced meaningful growth and healing through the same types of therapy I use to support my clients now.
I know how powerful it can be to work with someone who doesn’t just understand trauma clinically, but who innately knows and respects the courage it takes to turn toward what has hurt you and break entrenched cycles. My own healing guides how I show up as your therapist: with warmth, honesty, patience, attunement, and a belief that change is always possible, no matter how long you’ve been stuck.
I care deeply for my clients and the work we do together. I don’t take lightly what it means to be invited into the most tender parts of someone’s story, and hold that trust with reverence and humility. I feel truly grateful to call this my life’s work.
So much of what we carry began before we had a choice, but we aren’t stuck there. What shaped us does not have to be what defines us. I’m in this with you, walking beside you in partnership as you forge a new path forward.
Support for the Ones Who’ve Been Holding it All Alone
My work is centered around trauma rooted in relationships. I work with adult children of neglectful, abusive, and emotionally immature parents who are ready to heal their inner-child and break the cycle in their current relationships. I also work with survivors of abusive romantic partnerships and sexual trauma who are longing to reconnect with their sense of self and internal compass.
My clients are adaptive, resilient, and “successful” in every sense of the word. And that’s part of their pain. Many of us had no other choice but to push through and figure it all out on our own. Being reduced to that survival strategy can be incredibly isolating, and keeping up with that narrative after decades becomes increasingly unsustainable. It’s possible to be strong and to also not be okay.
To the “easy” ones, the capable ones, and the ones who’ve gotten really good at staying okay all by themselves, I’m here to hold it with you now. The past wounds you’ve kept buried, the present day hurt that’s rooted in what happened to you, and the pieces of your story you’ve never had space to share - I have room for all of it. I’d be honored to co-create a space where your healing can unfold gently, and where you can begin relating to yourself, your body, and your relationships in ways that are no longer shaped by the legacy of trauma.
specialties
Childhood Trauma • Emotional Neglect • Attachment Wounding • Abusive Relationships • Sexual Trauma • Chronic Anxiety • Perfectionism & Burnout • People Pleasing • Intrusive Thoughts • Religious Trauma • Body Image & Disordered Eating • Medical Trauma
healing through connection
healing through connection
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Active Partnership
In sessions, I am active and engaged in our process together. At times, I may offer reflection, direction, or a gentle challenge. At other times, I may slow us down so we can make space for your own wisdom to emerge. You set the overall pace, and I’ll bring guidance, reflection, and support as we find our way together.
I aim to be an ally to all the parts of you: the parts that are ready for growth, the parts that are longing for change but feel stuck and overwhelmed, and the parts that have been carrying too much for too long. I bring warmth, curiosity, and authenticity into the room, and I work actively to build a connection where you can feel safe enough to be honest, open, and fully yourself.
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Deeper Than Insight Alone
Recognizing your patterns and understanding why you feel the way you do is an important first step, but it doesn’t have to stop there. When we’ve experienced trauma, intellectual awareness can only take us so far. If you've ever found yourself completely aware but still feeling stuck, you know exactly what it means to hit that wall.
In our work together, our goal is to help you cross the bridge from simply understanding your story to actually feeling a shift in your body. By gently tending to what lives beneath the surface of intellect - unprocessed emotions, protective parts, and attachment wounds left untended to - we target the places where trauma is stored. This is how we move past a cognitive recap of your week and into the deep, physiological rewiring that creates the lasting change you’re looking for.
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Your Inner Wisdom Guides Our Work
Even with my training and clinical experience, I’m still not the expert on you. Your intuition, your pace, and the innate wisdom held by your mind and body will always guide the way.
I believe that what you need for healing already exists inside of you, even if trauma, anxiety, or years of self-protection have made it harder to access. My role is to help you reconnect with that inner knowing, not override it.
If you feel disconnected from yourself, we’ll get curious about what’s getting in the way. We’ll make room for the protective patterns, fears, and parts of you that may be blocking access to your authentic self until they begin to soften.
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A Focus on the Here and Now
While a big part of our focus in therapy is on the past, we won’t get stuck there. We’ll touch into the past in order to effect change in the present based on what you want to look and feel differently in your life.
We’ll pay close attention to what is happening in real time: what emotions come up, what you notice in your body, what parts of you want to pull away or protect, and what it feels like to let support in. This helps us track how old patterns are still living in the present, not just as stories you remember, but as protective nervous systems responses that happen automatically. As these responses unfold, we’re able to work with them to support change in the moment, not simply talk about it as something theoretical to explore later on your own.
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Creating a Mold For Your Daily Life
While many of the deep shifts happen in the safety of our sessions, the ultimate goal is for that healing to follow you out the door and trickle into your day-to-day. The work we do together is a lot like working with clay. Together, we mold, shape, and strengthen a new model for how you relate to yourself and your world - putting it into practice within our safe container so it can eventually translate outside of it.
Gradually, these shifts begin to settle into your daily rhythms and relationships. From there, we’ll engage in what I like to call the other 50% of healing: integrating that change so it lasts, ensuring it becomes a sustainable part of your everyday life rather than a fleeting moment.
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Affirming, Inclusive Care
Your identities, body, relationships, neurodiversity, gender, sexuality, and lived experiences are not only welcomed, but celebrated here. Many of my clients are LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent. Therapy should be a space where you can bring more of yourself into the room, not less.
Whether or not we share similar identities and lived experiences, I aim to work with humility, transparency, an awareness of my privilege, and a willingness to repair when I miss something.
Somatic, relational therapies I offer:
AEDP • EMDR • ‍Somatic Trauma Therapy • Parts Work/IFS • Emotionally Focused Therapy
Beyond The Therapy Room | My cup gets filled by my three dogs, bucatini pasta with extra parm, long walks, and quality time with my partner and friends.
Beyond The Therapy Room | Previously, I’ve held advocacy positions in child welfare and anti-human trafficking and served as a faculty instructor for a post-graduate trauma therapy course.
Beyond The Therapy Room | I was born in Colorado, and aside from a short (and wonderful) stint in San Francisco, have lived here my whole life.
Beyond The Therapy Room | Supporting other therapists is important to me. I currently offer clinical and business consultation to therapists in private practice.
Education, Licensure, and Advanced Training
education
Master of Social Work with a Concentration in Clinical Mental Health, University of Denver
Marriage and Family Therapy Two Year Post-Graduate Certificate, Denver Family Institute
Licensure
Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in Colorado and Indiana
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) in Rhode Island
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Colorado
Advanced Training
Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) | Level 3
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)
Parts Work Therapy and IFS
Somatic Therapy
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Relational Therapy
Ketamine Assisted Therapy
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The relationship between client and therapist is one of the most important parts of effective therapy, so we’ll use our initial consultation to get a sense of fit and whether working together feels right.
I bring advanced training in AEDP, EMDR, Parts Work Therapy/IFS, Somatic Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and Ketamine Assisted Therapy, along with dual licensure as both a Clinical Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist. I’ve dedicated my career to offering specialized, trauma-focused care and am deeply passionate about my work. I’ve been in the field of social work since 2017, began working as a therapist in 2018, and opened my private practice in 2020.
I intentionally work with a small number of clients so I can show up with the depth, presence, and consistency this work deserves. I also seek weekly consultation, both with my co-therapist Jordan and with a certified AEDP consultant. My care for our work doesn’t start and stop within the 50 minutes we’re together each week.
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While this list is not exhaustive, some of the common struggles adult children of emotionally immature parents may experience are:
Anxiety
Perfectionism
Burnout
Intrusive Thoughts
People-Pleasing
Self-Abandonment
Relationship Issues
Body Image Concerns
Disordered Eating
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I like to call AEDP - Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy - my therapeutic home. I first experienced it as a client, and knew when I walked out of that first session that it was a modality I needed to get trained in. AEDP is woven into each and every moment I share with my clients, shaping how I listen, how I respond, and how we move through your experiences together.
Rather than only talking about what happened, we slow down and work with what is happening in the room: emotions, body sensations, protective patterns, longings, memories, and moments of connection as they emerge. At the heart of AEDP is the undoing of aloneness: helping you process what was once too much to hold alone within the safety of an attuned therapeutic relationship. AEDP is rooted in neuroplasticity - the brain’s capacity to change through new experience - and uses the therapeutic relationship to help old pain be processed in new, healing ways.
You can learn more about AEDP here.
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Every week! It’s an integral part of my personal and professional wellbeing. My therapist works similarly to how I work, and I like to think of her as my clients’ grand therapist.
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A majority of my clients work with me long-term, often for two years or more, and many of them are with me for much longer and across various seasons of life and healing. It’s an honor to witness my clients’ evolution over time.
While the length of therapy is always shaped by your needs and goals, trauma work often unfolds gradually, and the modalities I use lend themselves to a consistent, longer-term process.
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Most likely, yes. While our space is not about me, I understand the desire to know more about the person you’re sharing so much with. There are also times where knowing parts of my experience might support the work we’re doing together.
It’s my role to make sure therapy stays centered on you and your healing. If you’re curious about something, I hope you feel comfortable asking, and we can decide together what feels beneficial to explore.
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No. While you’re welcome to let me know what you’re seeking, you don’t need to know whether AEDP, EMDR, parts work/IFS, somatic therapy, or another approach is the right fit before contacting me. Part of my role is to help us understand what you’re carrying, what has and hasn’t helped before, and what kind of support may feel most useful now.
We’ll talk together about what you’re hoping therapy can help with, and I’ll share how I imagine we might approach the work. Most likely, we’ll combine a variety of approaches to holistically support you.
Transparency and collaboration are key values of mine
Frequently Asked Questions | Working with Chadley
Choosing a therapist is so personal, and finding a good fit is the absolute most important part. My hope is for you to have a good sense of who I am, how I work, and what you can expect before you even reach out. Of course, if you have more questions for me, those are more than welcome on our initial consultation call.
