Frisco is a community defined by high achievement, fast growth, and tightly knit family life—nationally ranked schools, competitive athletics, demanding careers, and the kind of busy daily life that doesn’t leave much room for stopping. That can be a remarkable place to raise kids and build a career, but it can also make it hard to acknowledge when something has happened that the nervous system hasn’t recovered from. PTSD shows up across this community, and it deserves specialty care that’s familiar with the realities of FISD families, North Dallas professionals, the veterans and first responders who’ve chosen to live here, and the community-wide events that have touched all of these populations in recent years.
Our location at 3800 Gaylord Parkway, Suite 1100 sits just off the Dallas North Tollway near The Star and Stonebriar Centre. Patients coming from Plano, McKinney, Allen, Prosper, Celina, The Colony, and Little Elm can typically reach us in 20 minutes or less. We’re open Monday through Friday from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM and Saturday from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, with same-week appointments available.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition that can develop after a person experiences or witnesses a traumatic event. The triggering event might be a single incident—a serious accident, an assault, a sudden loss, a medical emergency, an act of violence—or it might be repeated exposure to high-stress situations over time, as is common for military members and first responders. PTSD can also develop from being closely connected to an event without being physically present, particularly when the people or places involved were part of your daily life. PTSD affects the brain’s ability to process memories, regulate emotion, and distinguish past danger from present safety, which is why symptoms can feel so overwhelming and so disconnected from current circumstances.
It is important to recognize that PTSD is not a sign of weakness or something you can simply “get over.” It is a treatable neurobiological condition that responds well to evidence-based care. People with PTSD may relive the trauma through flashbacks or nightmares, avoid reminders of the event, feel constantly on edge, or feel emotionally numb and disconnected from the people they love. None of that means something is wrong with who you are. It means the nervous system learned to keep you alive in a moment of extreme threat and hasn’t yet been given the tools to know it’s safe to stand down.
PTSD symptoms vary widely from person to person, but they typically cluster into four areas:
Intrusive memories. Flashbacks, nightmares, unwanted recurring memories, or strong physical reactions to reminders of the trauma. These can feel like reliving the event, not just remembering it.
Avoidance. Steering clear of places, people, activities, or even conversations that bring up reminders of what happened. This can shrink someone’s life significantly, often without people realizing it. In our community, this can look like avoiding certain shopping centers, certain stretches of the Tollway, or refusing to attend events in spaces that feel exposed.
Negative changes in mood and thinking. Persistent guilt or shame, distorted beliefs about oneself or others, emotional numbness, loss of interest in things that used to matter, or feeling disconnected from loved ones. Survivor’s guilt is particularly common after community-wide events.
Heightened arousal. Being easily startled, sleep problems, irritability or outbursts, hypervigilance, difficulty concentrating, or feeling like you can’t relax even in safe environments.
PTSD in adolescents often looks different than in adults, and in a high-achievement community like Frisco, it can be especially hard to recognize. Teens sometimes mask symptoms to keep up with school, sports, and family expectations. The signs to watch for include declining grades, withdrawal from friends or activities they used to love, increased irritability or anger, sleep problems, frequent physical complaints (headaches, stomachaches) with no medical cause, risk-taking behavior, or sudden avoidance of specific places or routines.
For FISD students competing for top class ranks, for athletes at The Star and the surrounding training facilities, and for kids whose identities are tightly tied to performance, PTSD can also show up as a sudden drop in the performance itself—a player who can’t shake nerves before games, a student whose grades collapse for no obvious reason, a previously confident kid who now seems brittle. These can be signs that something has happened that the nervous system needs help processing.
We treat teens across Frisco ISD, Plano ISD, McKinney ISD, Lewisville ISD, Allen ISD, and Prosper ISD with care that respects both the trauma and the academic and athletic pressures they’re navigating. For younger adolescents and teens, family involvement is often part of treatment, with parents coached on how to support recovery without inadvertently reinforcing avoidance.
Complex PTSD typically arises from prolonged or repeated trauma—ongoing abuse, captivity, sustained exposure to combat, repeated medical trauma, or childhood adversity. It includes the core symptoms of PTSD but also involves harder-to-shake patterns: difficulty regulating emotion, persistent feelings of shame or guilt, problems trusting others, and a fractured sense of self. Complex PTSD requires a treatment approach that pays attention to relationship and identity, not just symptom reduction.
PTSD also frequently co-occurs with other conditions—depression, anxiety disorders, substance use, chronic pain, OCD, and sleep disorders are all common. When PTSD and another condition show up together, treating only one of them usually doesn’t work; we assess the full picture during your first visit and build an integrated plan that addresses what’s actually present.
Trauma can happen to anyone, but certain patterns show up more often in the communities we serve. Naming them isn’t about defining anyone by their experiences—it’s about reducing the shame that keeps people from asking for help:
The Allen Outlets shooting and its long aftermath. May 6, 2023 left a lasting mark on Collin County. Eight people were killed and seven wounded at a shopping center used by families across Frisco, Plano, McKinney, Allen, and the surrounding suburbs. We treat survivors, family members of those killed and wounded, first responders who arrived that afternoon, witnesses, and community members whose ordinary Saturday routines were rewritten by what happened. We also treat patients who weren’t physically present but were closely connected—through friendship, through community, through the recognition that it could have been anyone in the family—because secondary or vicarious trauma is real, clinically meaningful, and deserves the same care as direct trauma. Symptom flares around the anniversary each May are common and worth treating, not enduring.
Motor vehicle accidents on North Dallas corridors. The Dallas North Tollway, Sam Rayburn Tollway (SRT/121), US-380, Preston Road, and the surrounding high-speed corridors carry heavy traffic, and serious MVAs are common. MVA-related PTSD is frequently underdiagnosed and very responsive to specialty treatment.
Severe weather events. North Texas sits in Tornado Alley, and the DFW Metroplex has been hit by significant storms repeatedly. The February 2021 winter storm (Uri) caused grid failure, frozen pipes across Frisco neighborhoods, and lasting damage that many residents are still rebuilding from emotionally. For patients whose trauma involved storms, flooding, or sudden infrastructure failure, severe weather forecasts can trigger significant symptom flares.
Military service and combat exposure. The DFW Metroplex has a substantial veteran population, including service members who deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other operations. Combat-related PTSD, military sexual trauma, and the cumulative effects of multiple deployments all respond to evidence-based care. We accept Tricare and coordinate with VA care when patients are also using VA benefits.
First responder and emergency services exposure. Fire, EMS, law enforcement, and dispatch personnel across Collin and Denton County—Frisco Fire, Frisco PD, Collin County Sheriff’s, Plano PD, McKinney PD, Allen PD, and surrounding agencies—carry repeated exposure to traumatic incidents. Many of the first responders who served at the Allen Outlets that day live in our community, and cumulative occupational trauma is real.
Medical trauma. ICU stays, difficult births, cancer treatment, sudden medical emergencies, and pandemic-era healthcare experiences can all leave lasting PTSD. So can being a healthcare worker—nurses, techs, and physicians at Texas Health Frisco, Baylor Scott & White Frisco, Children’s Health, Medical City Plano, and the broader North Dallas health systems carry their own version of medical trauma.
Assault, abuse, and loss. Survivors of physical or sexual assault, intimate partner violence, childhood abuse, or sudden traumatic loss often live with PTSD for years before getting specialized care. The barrier is rarely the willingness to heal—it’s finding someone who knows how to help.
Our trauma-informed approach is the foundation of everything we do. We build safety and trust from the first session, move at a pace that respects your nervous system, and explain every step clearly so that nothing feels coercive or surprising. Treatment is collaborative—you are always in control of what we work on, when, and how. Choice and consent aren’t checkboxes; they’re how trauma treatment actually works, because the wrong pace can re-create the helplessness the trauma started with.
We work with your timing. Some patients are ready to talk about specific events in early sessions; others need months of stabilization first. Both paths are legitimate, and we don’t push anyone faster than they can sustain.
Frisco, Plano, McKinney, and the surrounding North Dallas suburbs are tight-knit communities where neighbors know each other through schools, sports, churches, and shared social networks. Concerns about being seen at a mental health clinic are legitimate and common, particularly when trauma feels private. We take them seriously. Mental health treatment records are protected by HIPAA, our office is designed to be private rather than visible, and our extended hours (early morning, late evening, and Saturday) make it possible to get care without rearranging your week in ways that prompt questions. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for taking care of yourself.
In-person appointments in Frisco provide a valuable opportunity for direct interaction with experienced clinicians who specialize in trauma care. Whether you are commuting from Plano, McKinney, Allen, Prosper, or The Colony, these sessions allow for thorough assessments, personalized therapy, and real-time adjustments to treatment.
For trauma work in particular, being physically present matters. Clinicians can observe subtle signs of activation that virtual care can miss, support grounding in real time, and provide the kind of steady presence that helps the nervous system settle. We also pace sessions so you leave each appointment feeling more settled, not more activated.
Living in North Texas creates conditions that can interact with PTSD symptoms in ways patients in other parts of the country don’t experience. We’ve noticed several patterns worth naming, because patients are often relieved to learn they aren’t imagining the connection:
Spring severe weather and trauma reactivation. March through June brings tornadoes, hail, and severe storms that hit the DFW Metroplex hard. For patients whose trauma involved sudden weather events, storms during deployment, or any loss-of-control event, watch boxes and warnings can drive sharp spikes in symptoms—intrusive memories, sleep disruption, hypervigilance. We plan ahead with patients each spring.
Winter weather and Uri reactivation. Since the February 2021 winter storm and grid failure, many North Texas patients now experience significant symptom flares during winter weather forecasts that would have been unremarkable before. Checking heaters, pipes, water supplies, and elderly relatives can become compulsive in ways that didn’t exist before Uri.
Summer heat and sleep. North Texas summers are long and hot, which affects sleep quality. Poor sleep makes every PTSD symptom worse—nightmares, irritability, hypervigilance, emotional reactivity. Prazosin and sleep-focused treatment matter in this climate.
Anniversary effects on the May calendar. For patients whose trauma traces back to May 6, 2023, the early-May calendar can carry weight beyond the obvious anniversary date—the lead-up, the news coverage, the social media reminders. We anticipate this with patients whose history makes that period difficult.
Year-round outdoor access for recovery. North Texas weather supports outdoor behavioral activation most of the year, including at Frisco’s many parks and trail systems. Recovery from PTSD involves reclaiming the world, not just reducing symptoms.
Our clinic in Frisco, TX offers a comprehensive range of PTSD treatments designed to work together. We combine evidence-based trauma-focused psychotherapy, medication management, and advanced neuromodulation to provide care that meets you where you are. Our goal is to reduce symptoms, restore functioning, and help you reclaim the parts of your life that PTSD has narrowed.
PTSD treatment is not one-size-fits-all. Some patients respond well to medication alone, others benefit most from trauma-focused therapy, and many find the greatest relief through a combination of approaches—often layered over time as the nervous system stabilizes and deeper work becomes possible.
Several psychotherapies have strong evidence for PTSD, and the right choice depends on the person and the trauma. We offer or coordinate the three most established approaches:
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). A structured, time-limited therapy that helps patients identify and revise the “stuck points” that trauma often leaves behind—beliefs about safety, trust, control, esteem, and intimacy that no longer match present reality. CPT is typically 12 sessions and works well for patients who prefer a more verbal, structured approach.
Prolonged Exposure (PE). A trauma-focused therapy that involves gradually approaching memories, situations, and reminders of the trauma in a safe, controlled way so the nervous system can learn that the threat is past. PE is highly effective and is delivered at a pace you control.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). A therapy that uses bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements) while a patient briefly attends to trauma memories, helping the brain reprocess them so they no longer carry the same emotional charge. EMDR is well-established for PTSD and is often a good fit for patients who find detailed verbal description of trauma too difficult, including teens who may not have words for what happened.
The choice between approaches is collaborative. We discuss the options during your evaluation and match the therapy to your goals, your readiness, and the kind of trauma you’re working through.
Medication can play an important role in PTSD treatment, especially when sleep, mood, and hyperarousal symptoms are severe enough to make therapy hard to engage with. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are commonly prescribed for PTSD; sertraline and paroxetine are the two SSRIs with FDA approval specifically for PTSD, though others are also commonly used. These medications can reduce depression, anxiety, irritability, and intrusive symptoms over a course of weeks.
Prazosin deserves special mention. Originally a blood pressure medication, prazosin has been shown to significantly reduce the frequency and intensity of trauma-related nightmares for many patients. For PTSD patients whose nights have become the worst part of their day, prazosin can be transformative—not because it treats the underlying trauma, but because restoring sleep often opens the door to everything else that needs to happen in recovery. We monitor blood pressure carefully when prescribing prazosin.
Our medication management services in Frisco are led by Dr. Alex Chung, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist, alongside our psychiatric nurse practitioners Erica Canterbury, PMHNP, and Zahra Hassanally, PMHNP. Together they oversee careful monitoring of dosage, side effects, and overall effectiveness. We prioritize safety, especially around sleep medications, blood pressure considerations with prazosin, and any other medications you may already be taking. Regular follow-ups ensure adjustments can be made promptly.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive treatment that uses targeted magnetic pulses to stimulate areas of the brain involved in mood regulation and trauma processing. TMS is FDA-approved for depression and has shown meaningful benefit for PTSD symptoms, particularly when medication and therapy alone have not been sufficient.
TMS sessions are conducted in a comfortable clinical setting, easily accessible from the Dallas North Tollway, the Sam Rayburn Tollway, or Preston Road. The procedure is typically well-tolerated, requires no sedation or recovery time, and patients can drive themselves home and return to normal activities the same day. Many patients report improvements in sleep, mood, and overall emotional reactivity over a course of treatment.
Ketamine is a newer, fast-acting option for PTSD, particularly for patients with treatment-resistant symptoms or significant depression alongside their PTSD. Unlike traditional antidepressants, which work through serotonin and can take weeks to show effect, ketamine acts on the glutamate system and can produce noticeable symptom relief within hours or days.
Ketamine therapy is delivered under medical supervision in a series of carefully monitored sessions. In Frisco, we integrate ketamine into a broader treatment plan—typically alongside trauma-focused therapy, because the window of reduced symptom intensity that ketamine opens can be a powerful time to do the deeper psychological work that trauma recovery requires. Ketamine is not appropriate for everyone, and we’ll have a clear conversation about whether it’s the right fit during your evaluation.
People whose trauma comes from service to others often face their own set of barriers to care: cultural expectations of toughness, concerns about how treatment will affect a career or security clearance, and the legitimate sense that civilian providers don’t always understand the work. We take all of that seriously.
For veterans, we approach treatment with respect for the culture and complexity of military service. We accept Tricare and coordinate with VA care when patients are also using VA benefits. For first responders—Frisco Fire, Frisco PD, Collin County Sheriff’s, Plano PD, McKinney PD, Allen PD, and surrounding agencies—we understand cumulative occupational trauma and the unique challenge of treating PTSD in someone who still has to go back on shift. Many of the first responders who served at the Allen Outlets that day live and work in these communities, and we approach their care with the recognition that the experience didn’t end when the scene cleared. For healthcare workers and medical trauma survivors at Texas Health Frisco, Baylor Scott & White Frisco, Children’s Health, Medical City Plano, and elsewhere, we recognize the particular layer of trauma that comes from being both witness and participant in critical moments.
We’re not a VA clinic and not a peer-support program, but we work alongside both, and many of our patients use multiple resources together. What we add is specialty-level psychiatric and trauma care delivered close to home.
Our Frisco clinic is led by a board-certified psychiatrist and two psychiatric nurse practitioners, all with training in mood, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders:
Dr. Alex Chung, MD — Board-certified Psychiatrist. View profile.
Erica Canterbury, PMHNP — Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. View profile.
Zahra Hassanally, PMHNP — Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. View profile.
Our Frisco team takes a trauma-informed, patient-first approach grounded in evidence-based practice: treatment plans built around your specific symptoms and goals, transparent conversations about what each option can and can’t do, and a steady pace that respects your nervous system. With same-week appointments, extended hours, and Tricare accepted, we’re committed to delivering specialty PTSD care that fits the way North Dallas families and professionals actually live.
Starting PTSD treatment can feel daunting, and we know that walking through the door is sometimes the hardest part. Your first visit is designed to be welcoming, thorough, and unhurried. Most first appointments run 60 to 90 minutes—long enough to actually hear your story without rushing through it.
You won’t be asked to describe your trauma in detail at the first visit unless you choose to. We’ll talk about what’s bringing you in, how symptoms are affecting your life, your history, and your goals. The actual trauma work, if and when you decide to do it, happens at a pace and a moment that you and your clinician choose together.
The comprehensive evaluation includes a detailed clinical interview, standardized PTSD assessments, screening for co-occurring conditions (depression, anxiety, substance use, sleep disorders, OCD), and—when appropriate and with your permission—input from family members or other healthcare providers. This process helps identify the full picture of what you’re carrying, which is the only way to build a treatment plan that actually addresses it.
We also explore your history with PTSD, any previous treatments, and the strategies you’ve already been using to cope. That history matters; it tells us what’s been tried, what’s helped, and what to do differently this time.
Following the evaluation, we collaborate with you to create a personalized treatment plan that aligns with your needs and preferences. This plan outlines the recommended therapies, medication options, and any additional supports that may be beneficial. Goals in PTSD treatment often start practical—better sleep, fewer nightmares, less reactivity—and expand from there into the broader work of reclaiming the life you want.
We encourage open communication and ongoing feedback so that treatment stays responsive to your evolving needs. Recovery from PTSD is not linear; we expect that and adjust the plan accordingly.
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