Financial Trauma Therapy
Providing Psychotherapy and Counselling services for financial trauma therapy, in person at our office in Burlington and virtually online across Ontario.
Feelings of shame, fear, or avoidance around money aren’t just “mindset issues.” They’re often symptoms of unprocessed trauma.
Do any of these sound familiar?
- You feel on edge, overwhelmed, or avoidant when dealing with money
- You’re unsure how to charge your worth or raise your rates
- You under-earn, overwork, or take on too many sliding scale clients
- You overspend to relieve stress—or hoard money due to fear of loss
- You avoid looking at your finances entirely
- You feel guilt or shame when you think about wealth, success, or retirement
- You have internalized beliefs that “money is bad” or “people like me don’t thrive”
These are common signs of financial trauma. They are not character flaws—they are adaptations rooted in your lived experiences, nervous system patterns, and often, collective and systemic conditions.
Whether you’re a therapist, professional, entrepreneur, or parent, financial trauma can deeply impact your ability to feel safe, resourced, and secure. These experiences may stem from childhood instability, systemic inequity, generational scarcity, or financial abuse—and they often live in the nervous system long after the original events.
At Christina Janiga Psychotherapy, we offer financial trauma therapy to help individuals uncover the emotional roots of their money patterns, regulate their nervous systems, and develop a healthier, more empowered relationship with wealth, work, and worth.
What Is Financial Trauma?
Financial trauma is a type of psychological and physiological distress resulting from harmful or destabilizing financial experiences. This may include:
- Growing up in poverty or financial insecurity
- Experiencing bankruptcy, job loss, or sudden loss of income
- Job and Business insecurity
- Entrepreneurial challenges
- Chronic under-earning or overworking
- Exposure to systemic oppression, wage disparity, or intergenerational wealth gaps
- Financial abuse in relationships
- Living through economic uncertainty or instability
Like other forms of trauma, financial trauma can trigger a nervous system survival response—causing you to:
- Fight by overworking, hustling, overcompensating, and generally doing too much.
- Flight by avoiding bills, analyzing quarterly profit/loss, making difficult decisions
- Freeze by under earning and shuttin down.
- Fawn by over giving and over extending yourself
It’s okay to feel safe. It’s okay to build wealth. It’s okay to rest.
Financial trauma therapy with our team at Christina Janiga Psychotherapy helps you:
- Identify your money survival style: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn and your money blocks
- Learn how dopamine plays a part of your financial blocks and trauma
- Regulate your nervous systems and come out of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses
- Effectively process the experiences from the past that contribute to your money blocks and transform your beliefs and improve your relationship with money and boost your confidence in running your business
- Gain clarity about your money mindset and develop the courage to pursue new business opportunities, expand your horizons and reclaim your sense of empowerment
Who can benefit from financial trauma therapy?
This work may be right for you if you:
- Are a therapist, healthcare provider, or entrepreneur feeling stuck or undercharging
- Avoid money altogether, or obsess over it
- Grew up with financial scarcity or economic trauma
- Struggle to ask for what you’re worth
- Feel it’s morally wrong to have wealth or success
- Want to break generational patterns around money and worth
- Are ready to feel safe, empowered, and resourced
We welcome adults of all genders and backgrounds, and we hold space for the unique experiences of marginalized communities and those impacted by intergenerational or systemic financial trauma.
Our Approach to Financial Trauma Therapy
Our team at Christina Janiga Psychotherapy has extensive experience in helping people identify their traumatic experiences that are holding them back from their hopes and dreams. We work collaboratively with you to explore how financial trauma may be impacting your financial life, your sense of safety, and your capacity to thrive.
We draw from brain-based, evidence-informed approaches including:
- EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to reprocess painful or limiting money memories
- Parts Work / IFS-informed Therapy to explore internal conflicts or moral dilemmas around wealth
- Somatic and Nervous System Regulation Tools to shift freeze, fight, flight, and fawn states
- Psychoeducation on financial trauma and its psychological and neurobiological roots
- Mindful reflection + practical strategies to support clarity, sustainability, and financial alignment
Together, we’ll explore what has shaped your money story—and help you build a more sustainable future.
YOUR NEXT STEPS
Financial trauma therapy is meant to help you ease your nervous system survival responses and shift your relationship with money—not through shame or force, but through compassion, clarity, and nervous system healing.
1:1 & Group Therapy Options
We offer:
- Individual Therapy for financial trauma, available in-person in Burlington or virtually across Ontario
- Financial Trauma Group Therapy (including EMDR groups for therapists and professionals)
Book a free 15 minuted consultation call.
If you are interested in seeking therapy to help you overcome your money and wealth blocks and financial trauma, we encourage you to reach out to us for a free 15-minute consultation. During the consultation, we will answer any questions you have about our practice and our psychotherapists, and help you determine if we are the right fit for you. We believe that feeling comfortable with your therapist is essential for a successful therapeutic relationship.
Invest in your healing.
Investing in yourself is an important step towards finding the happiness and fulfillment you deserve. By seeking therapy and working with a trained professional, you can get to the root of the problems you are experiencing and find solutions that are tailored to your unique needs and goals. Together, you and your therapist will work on healing old wounds and developing healthy coping strategies to help you move forward in a way that feels authentic and fulfilling.
First Intake Session
During this initial 50 minute session, you will meet with your therapist to define the psychotherapy relationship and discuss the details of informed consent.
Your therapist will gather information about you and your biological, psychological, and social history and how this is impacting your current situation. Together you will define the goals you have going forward.
Fees vary between therapists.
Ongoing Therapy
Commit to at least to 4 weekly 50-minute sessions (either in person at our Burlington office or virtually online across Ontario).
We find that clients who cannot commit to at least 4 weekly sessions tend to have more difficulty in establishing a relationship with their therapist and often sessions consist of recapping the previous weeks instead of focusing on forward movement and their treatment goals.
Fees vary between therapists.
Group EMDR Therapy
3-week EMDR therapy group for psychotherapists to process financial trauma, release money shame, and create sustainable success in private practice.
An environment for like-minded professionals to support each other, as well as process (individually) their barriers to money and wealth.
You don’t have to hustle harder or figure it all out alone.
Next group is October/November 2025.
More about Christina Janiga Psychotherapy
At Christina Janiga Psychotherapy, we recognize that financial trauma is more than just numbers—it’s deeply tied to survival, self-worth, and systemic pressures. Many psychotherapists and professionals struggle with navigating financial avoidance, burnout, and internal conflict around wealth, especially during times of economic and political uncertainty.
We support individuals from all backgrounds, including marginalized communities, who may feel stuck in scarcity-driven patterns—whether that shows up as overworking, under-earning, overspending, or emotionally shutting down around money. Our approach helps clients explore the psychology of money, process financial trauma through EMDR and somatic therapies, and build a more regulated, intentional, and sustainable relationship with money.
We believe it’s okay to build wealth, be sustainable, and thrive—without guilt or burnout. Our work helps clients unblock money beliefs, reconnect to their higher self, and make values-based decisions for both life and business.
Secure Services
Christina Janiga and associated employees of Christina Janiga Psychotherapy offer virtual psychotherapy and couselling sessions through secure, Canada-based software called JaneVideo. JaneVideo is a secure and encrypted online video platform that meet all of Canada’s privacy requirements and laws.