Rapid relief from post-infidelity stress disorder in 1-5 sessions
Therapy for Partner Betrayal Trauma in Seattle
Seattle Betrayal Trauma Therapy: Partner Infidelity and Affairs
Using Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
Maybe you discovered the affair through a text notification while you were getting ready for work in your Queen Anne apartment, or through a credit card statement at your Bellevue home, or because your partner finally told you after months of suspicious late nights at their downtown Seattle office.
You’re looking for a therapist in Seattle who specializes in partner betrayal trauma — not couples therapy, not general anxiety treatment, but someone who works specifically with the partner who was betrayed. You’re looking for a therapist who understands that affair trauma creates symptoms that look like PTSD: intrusive images of what happened, hypervigilance about your partner’s whereabouts, physical reactions when you see someone who looks like the affair partner, or bodily responses when you pass the restaurant where they met.
Why ART works best for partner betrayal trauma and post-infidelity stress disorder
Seattle has therapists who specialize in relationship therapy, sex therapy, and trauma therapy. But most relationship therapists treat couples together, which doesn’t always address the individual trauma response you’re experiencing. Most trauma therapists treat PTSD from accidents, assault, or military service; they’re not familiar with betrayal-specific trauma or the particular questions that come up after infidelity.
The therapists who do treat betrayal often use longer-term approaches: weekly sessions for months or years while you process the trauma, build coping skills, and decide whether or not to stay in the relationship. That works for some people.
But if you’re a software engineer at Amazon managing this, a physician at UW taking care of patients while barely holding yourself together, or a lawyer at a downtown Seattle firm who needs to function at high capacity while your personal life is falling apart, you might not have months to spend in weekly therapy.
Learn more about my approach to treating partner betrayal trauma here.
How this works...
How Accelerated Resolution Therapy works for partner betrayal trauma
I use Accelerated Resolution Therapy, which can resolve partner betrayal trauma in 1-5 sessions rather than requiring long-term treatment.
We work with the specific traumatic images and memories: discovering the affair, seeing the messages, confronting your partner, and the moment you realized the timeline of lies.
Using smooth eye movements, we process these memories so that they lose their emotional charge (you’ll keep the facts, but lose the pain). No drugs, hypnosis, or homework required.
Losing the emotional charge doesn’t mean you forget what happened or that the relationship impact disappears.
But it does mean that the intrusive images stop, the racing heart when your partner’s phone buzzes goes away, you can think and talk about what happened without your nervous system activating.
You can have difficult conversations without melting down, you can make decisions about the relationship from a grounded place rather than from triggered reactivity, and you can sleep through the night without nightmares again.
Most people notice significant reduction in intrusive thoughts and hypervigilance after the first session. Full resolution of the trauma response typically happens within 1-5 sessions, each 60-90 minutes long.
How Betrayal Trauma Changes After ART…
After 1-5 ART sessions, many people who have experienced betrayal trauma describe their healing journey like this:
You sleep through the night, the nightmares stop, you don’t wake up thinking about whether your partner’s phone is face-down on the nightstand.
You drive past the restaurant where they met the affair partner and only realize it later because it didn’t register as anything, just another building you pass.
You forget their phone password because you haven't used it in months — not because you’re white-knuckling past the urge to check, but because the urge disappeared.
Your body stops preparing for threat during ordinary conversations, which means you can actually talk about logistics or boundaries or what happened without either shutting down or becoming combative.
The intrusive images that used to interrupt your workday just stop showing up, not because you’re blocking them, but because they’re not there anymore.
You choose restaurants based on convenience and whether they have good food. The fact that your spouse went there with the affair partner becomes historical information without emotional charge, similar to knowing what year the place opened.
Your instincts start reacting to actual present-moment information instead of past trauma, you stop second-guessing everything, you start planning next month or next year because your brain naturally orients toward the future when the past stops hijacking it.
You can make decisions about your relationship, your living situation, and your boundaries from a place of clarity rather than anxiety so that you don’t look back with regret months or years from now.
You can focus at work instead of losing hours to checking location history or re-reading old messages. You can be present with your children instead of mentally replaying what you discovered.
The facts remain: you’ll still remember what happened. You might still be angry, you might still be deciding whether to stay or leave, you will still need to rebuild trust or learn to effectively co-parent during separation.
But you can do those things without thoughts about the betrayal interrupting your workday, without panic reactions when your partner is late coming home, without needing wine to have conversations about what happened.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy: 1-5 Sessions for Betrayal Trauma Relief…
What Makes ART Different From other approaches?
While traditional therapy focuses on talking through the betrayal and understanding it, ART targets the actual images, emotions, and sensations stored in your brain that trigger you — this is exactly why ART works so quickly.
Using guided eye movements (similar to what your body naturally does during sleep), ART works directly to “reprogram” how distressing memories are stored in your brain so they no longer trigger automatic physical and emotional reactions.
Think of it like reorganizing a filing system in your brain. Right now, betrayal-related memories are filed in your “immediate threat” folder, causing your nervous system to react as if danger is present every time they’re accessed.
ART helps move these memories into a different filing system: one labeled “past events that no longer require emergency response.” The facts remain the same, but your brain’s automatic reaction changes completely.
And the best news is that this neurological change is automatic. It’s not something you have to consciously choose or work at maintaining.
But Does It Really Work for Betrayal? The Evidence Says Yes.
Your brain’s response to betrayal is a trauma response, and ART is designed to resolve it fast.
Here’s what the science tells us:
Rapid results: Most clients see significant relief in 1-5 sessions, not months or years. This isn't just a claim; it's what the data shows. The efficiency of ART means you can stop spending your life managing symptoms and start living it again.
Exceptional completion rates: 94% of people who start ART, complete it. Compare this to ~60% for traditional talk therapy. People stick with ART because they feel it working quickly, which is crucial when you’re exhausted and can’t imagine another long-term therapy commitment.
Profound neurological change: Studies on ART consistently show effect sizes (a measure of treatment strength) that are 2-4 times stronger than traditional therapy. This isn't just “feeling a little better”; it’s measurable, lasting change in how your brain and body respond to triggers.
It works for the tough cases: ART showed a 61% major improvement rate in combat veterans with PTSD: a population that often struggles with other therapies. This demonstrates its power to handle severe, stubborn trauma responses, like those often seen after betrayal.
The research confirms what we see in practice: ART effectively calms the overactive threat response that betrayal trauma creates, allowing your nervous system to finally return to a state of safety.
ART vs. EMDR
Both ART and EMDR use eye movements to process trauma, but ART offers several advantages for betrayal trauma:
ART:
More structured and directive approach
Focuses on replacing disturbing images with positive ones
Typically faster results (1-5 sessions vs. 6-12+ for EMDR)
No homework or between-session processing required
Each session is complete in itself
EMDR:
Less directive, more free-association based
Focuses on desensitizing traumatic memories
Requires stronger therapeutic relationship building
Often requires more sessions for complex trauma
A 90-minute Accelerated Resolution Therapy session is $500.
ART sessions are $500 per session. Each session runs as long as needed to complete the protocol, typically 60-90 minutes. The average length of treatment is 3-4 sessions for most issues.
Total investment for most clients: $1,500-$2,000.
ART is an investment in your freedom and well-being.
Get in touch
Seattle Area Coverage
I provide online trauma therapy to residents throughout Washington and in the Greater Seattle area, including:
Capitol Hill • Queen Anne • Ballard • Fremont • Wallingford • Green Lake • Bellevue • Redmond • Kirkland • Mercer Island • Bothell • Sammamish • Issaquah • West Seattle • Magnolia • Madison Park
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
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I specialize in all types of betrayal: relationship betrayal (infidelity, affairs, emotional affairs, pornography addiction, financial deception), family betrayals (parent affairs that destroyed your family, sibling betrayals, inheritance disputes, family business conflicts, discovering family secrets), friendship betrayals (best friend betrayals, social group exclusions, confidences violated), and professional betrayals (business partnership deception, workplace affairs that affected you, mentor violations of trust).
The common thread is that someone you trusted fundamentally violated that trust, leaving you with symptoms of betrayal trauma. Whether it was a spouse, parent, sibling, best friend, or business partner, your nervous system responds the same way, and ART addresses that trauma response directly.
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No. You don’t have to share any of the specifics. ART works with the images and sensations stored in your nervous system, not the verbal story. You can keep the details private and still process the trauma completely. Many clients find this privacy one of the most relieving aspects of ART.
This is especially helpful for people who are processing a business betrayal or work trauma and they have signed an NDA.
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That’s completely normal. ART helps your nervous system calm down so that you can think clearly about those types of decisions. Right now, trauma is making every decision feel urgent and next to impossible.
After ART, you’ll still have the same choices to make, but you’ll be making them from a regulated place instead of from panic, rage, or numbness.
Many clients say they couldn’t even think about the relationship question clearly until their nervous system settled.
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Based on ART research for trauma generally, most issues resolve in 1-5 sessions, with a 94% treatment completion rate.
While there isn’t specific published research on betrayal trauma and ART yet, complex trauma typically takes 4-5 sessions, while single-incident traumas often need just 1-2.
We'll start with one session and assess from there. You’ll know after the first session if ART is working for you because most people feel noticeably different before they leave.
About Allyson Clemmons, LICSW
My specialization in partner betrayal trauma emerged from years of working with couples after affairs and infidelity. While couples work was essential for the relationship to heal, I noticed betrayed partners also needed specialized individual therapy that wasn’t available. They would only find generic trauma treatment that kept them talking in circles for months, while their nervous systems remained hijacked by the betrayal.
I noticed that partner betrayal creates a specific type of trauma that requires targeted treatment. Whether it’s infidelity, family betrayal, or professional betrayal, the neurological impact is profound, and it doesn’t resolve through insight or understanding alone.
Now I exclusively use Accelerated Resolution Therapy to help people move from investigating and constant triggering to genuine peace in just 1-5 sessions. You don’t need to manage partner betrayal trauma indefinitely. You can actually resolve it.
Independently licensed in Washington State: #LW61398886
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heal the root cause in 1-5 sessions
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heal the root cause in 1-5 sessions —