About me
Ellen Ronka, LCMHC is a licensed psychotherapist with 23 years of experience who specializes
in developmental and acute adult trauma, dissociation, and neuroplastic symptoms using a
psychodynamic and attachment-based lens. Her professional training has focused heavily on
experiential, somatically-oriented modalities for resolving trauma, including EMDR,
Brainspotting, hypnosis, Internal Family Systems, and extensive study of energy psychology
modalities. Meanwhile, for most of her career, she was trying to heal her own chronic symptoms
through long-term psychotherapy, alternative healing approaches, and deep personal spiritual
work. Her various symptoms persisted for 25 years, largely due to a lack of understanding of
pain science combined with a multitude of misguided structurally-oriented interventions.
Understanding pain science through training in PRT and applying EAET principles finally
resolved her symptoms... mostly.
Her clinical work has been driven by a singular question: Why do patients continue to struggle
with neuroplastic symptoms despite effective trauma release work, insight, and a clear
understanding of the mindbody model? Her observations of her clients and her own minor
lingering symptoms led her to conclude that shame and attachment dynamics occupy a central
role in the development and maintenance of neuroplastic symptoms, including in individuals
whose histories contain no obvious “big T” traumas. Understanding the mechanics of shame
brought clarity to decades of clinical observation and professional training and facilitated the
final stage of her own healing. She went on to develop a framework designed to address the
persistent shame that she believes underlies neuroplastic symptoms. Ellen is the founder and
facilitator of Chronic To Cured, a trauma-informed psychoeducational and group program built
around this framework. Through her work with psychotherapy clients and program participants,
she continues to explore how shame awareness, emotional courage, high-quality attunement, and
corrective emotional experiences contribute to recovery from neuroplastic symptoms.
