Therapy for Cycle Breakers
Individual, couples, and family therapy for people working through trauma, relationship patterns, and family estrangement.
You may understand where your patterns came from and still find yourself repeating them.
Maybe you're carrying the effects of experiences that happened years ago. Maybe you and your partner keep getting caught in the same painful cycle. Or maybe the relationship between an adult child and parent has become strained, distant, or completely disconnected.
I help people understand the patterns they inherited, heal what still hurts, and build something different.
Specialized Therapy for Adult Children & Parents
Family relationships can hold decades of love, hurt, expectations, misunderstandings, and patterns that no one person created on their own.
I work specifically with adult children and their parents who want help preventing estrangement, navigating an existing rupture, or exploring whether reconciliation is possible.
This isn't therapy focused on deciding who is right or assigning blame. It's an opportunity to understand what happened, make room for different experiences of the same family, and explore whether a healthier relationship can be built from here.
LEARN ABOUT ADULT CHILD & PARENT THERAPY
Meet Sarah
Sarah Benitez-Zandi, MSW, LCSW
I'm a trauma therapist and the founder of Trauma Wise Healing.
I specialize in working with cycle breakers: people willing to look honestly at how trauma, attachment, family experiences, and relationship patterns are shaping their lives today.
My work makes room for understanding where our patterns came from without assuming that understanding is the end of the work. Therapy can hold compassion for what happened while also making room for accountability, repair, healing, and change.
My approach is trauma-informed, attachment-focused, relational, and integrative. Depending on what brings you to therapy, our work may incorporate EMDR, Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), somatic and nervous-system informed approaches, and other evidence-informed treatments.
Individual Therapy
For adults working through trauma, attachment wounds, family-of-origin experiences, overfunctioning, and patterns that continue showing up even when you understand where they came from.
EXPLORE INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
Where Do You Want to Begin?
Couples Therapy
For couples navigating recurring conflict, emotional disconnection, attachment injuries, trauma, major relationship transitions, or uncertainty about how to move forward together.
EXPLORE COUPLES THERAPY
Family Therapy
For adult children and parents navigating conflict, relationship rupture, estrangement, or the difficult work of rebuilding connection.
EXPLORE FAMILY THERAPY
Sometimes Insight Isn't Enough
You can understand exactly why you respond the way you do and still find yourself having the same reaction when something touches an old wound.
That's why my work goes beyond traditional talk therapy.
Depending on your needs and goals, our work may incorporate:
EMDR | ART | SOMATIC THERAPY | KAP
Most sessions are intentionally 90 minutes. Longer sessions give us time to settle in, move beyond the surface, do meaningful therapeutic work, and leave space for integration before you return to the rest of your day.
EXPLORE MY APPROACH
Notes From the Therapy Room
Thoughts on trauma, relationships, family estrangement, cycle breaking, and the complicated parts of being human.
Are Therapists Contributing to Family Estrangement?
Looking beyond the headlines.
Read Article
Is Family Estrangement Actually Increasing?
Or are expectations for family relationships changing?
Maybe We Don't Have a Family Estrangement Crisis
Maybe we have a family transition crisis.
You Can Understand Where a Pattern Came From Without Continuing It.
Whether you're looking for support for yourself, your relationship, or the relationship between an adult child and parent, change can start with understanding what's happening and deciding what you want to do differently from here.
Virtual psychotherapy is available to clients located in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Minnesota, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina.