Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Numbing your pain is not a conscious choice. It could be transgenerational trauma. Numbness is a common survival strategy, a self-protection from emotional overwhelm, beginning in childhood, during and after trauma. And, it’s often passed down for generations. Transgenerational trauma is real and numbness and trauma go together. Without knowing it, you experience your parents’…

Hunger for love can steer you wrong. Do you end up with critical partners who make you feel like you’re asking too much and gaslight you into feeling something’s wrong with you? You can’t figure out if that’s true. Here’s the reality. Many things might blind you: 1. Turning away from safe love because real…

You’ve been hurt by love. Maybe many times. Here’s what can happen: You criticize yourself for wanting anything. Feel stupid if you try to date. Believe it won’t work out before you even try. Wonder how anyone could love you because of “the way you are.” Tell yourself that you’re OK alone, it’s better that…

You were sexually abused and violated by someone you needed to trust. Now, you struggle with whether or not to keep your childhood sexual abuse a secret and who is safe to tell. Secrets leave you much too alone. But is anyone safe? Your trust is fragile and you’re wary of people. Understandably. The question…

Anger after childhood abuse is normal. Yet, you probably struggle to express it. Either you stuff it down, feel guilty about it, or are (or were) told your anger is wrong or “bad,” so that’s how you think about it. Or you can’t control it when your anger does come out. Here’s the reality: Anger…

The Los Angeles Wildfires have devasted our city with sudden loss and PTSD. Many of you have been shattered more than others, displaced, and faced with the loss of your homes and precious belongings. The heartbreak and shock is enormous. Numbing, anxiety, depression, and fear are part of any loss. How do you deal with…

Who will hurt you the most? That’s the hidden question in Anna Kendrick’s Woman of the Hour.  And, as a woman, how do you tell? It’s by seeing (or not seeing) red flags. Sometimes, you can’t see them when you’re lonely or hungry for attention and love. Other times, when you have reasons not to…

When you’ve already lost too much and live in fear of more loss, that can make you disconnect. This is where we find the three sisters in Azazel Jacobs’s His Three Daughters. Disconnected. They each have a method of disconnection and each has her reasons. But disconnection is lonely and creates more loss, even if…

If you’ve experienced past trauma, an old trauma trigger will bring on Anxiety. And, for Riley Anderson in Kelsey Mann’s Inside Out 2, it’s her fear of being alone. So, it isn’t just the new emotions of puberty that make Anxiety now take center stage and push away Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust into…