Healing Old Wounds, Embracing New Journeys

What is Trauma?

Trauma is any kind of negative, overwhelming event that can do lasting damage to a person’s sense of worth or safety.

There are many kinds of traumas, some of which include:

• Physical trauma: Injury to your body through accidents, violence, or natural disasters
• Emotional trauma: Injury through witnessing or experiencing abuse, neglect, or loss
• Sexual trauma: Injury through sexual acts or situations done to you or around that were without your consent
• Spiritual trauma: Injury to your ability to connect with a higher power or a higher purpose

The same event may be more traumatic for some people than others, depending on their coping resources and prior life experiences. Trauma experienced early on in life, such as abuse or neglect in childhood, can have particularly devastating long-term effects and can make one more sensitive to feeling overwhelmed by later traumas.

Signs and Symptoms of Unresolved Trauma

Some common symptoms of unresolved trauma include:

• Flashbacks or intrusive thoughts
• Nightmares
• Desire to avoid triggers
• Hypervigilance or being “jumpy”
• Difficulty concentrating
• Emotional numbness or flatness
• Inappropriate or excessive guilt 
• Relationship problems
• Perfectionism or underachieving
• Substance abuse
• Behavioral addictions (eating disorders, gambling, compulsive sexuality, etc.)
• Self-injury behaviors (cutting, hitting, etc.)
• A pervasive belief that life will end early or abruptly
• Suicidal thinking

What is Trauma Therapy?

When your past is always present, it’s hard to move forward. You can feel haunted by things that you wish you could forget. Trauma therapy can provide you with a safe space in which to process your experiences, learn healthy ways to cope, and figure out how to move forward.

Trauma therapy can help you:

• Process traumatic experiences: Understand and process the emotions, physical reactions, and unhealthy beliefs associated with unresolved past traumas.
• Develop healthy coping skills: Learn positive ways to manage stress and anxiety, and reduce use of unhealthy coping mechanisms (such as drinking or drug use, cutting, etc.)
• Reduce symptoms: Reduce the frequency or intensity of flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, avoidance, etc.
• Improve relationships: Strengthen relationships with loved ones, and help loved ones understand how to support healthy trauma recovery.
• Enhance overall well-being: Improve quality of life.

Trauma Therapy Techniques

There are many different types of trauma therapy techniques, including:

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR): Involves learning advanced self-soothing and grounding skills. Also provides opportunities to make peace with painful memories of past traumas, and prepare to deal differently with trauma triggers in the future.
• Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM): Teaches somatic relaxation and resourcing skills while also providing gentle options for coping with triggering thoughts and images.
• Exposure Therapy: Gradually facing triggers in a safe and controlled way to help your nervous system learn that it does not need to go into fight, flight, or freeze when you encounter that trigger.

My Approach

We start slow and put you, the survivor, firmly in the driver’s seat. You don’t have to talk or even think about anything you don’t want to. I can help you get ready to face difficult things by learning and practicing positive coping skills and identifying your motivations for recovery; if your unresolved traumas make it hard to be a good partner, do well at work, or take care of your health, then we can use your “why” to help motivate you during any difficult parts of trauma therapy.

Whether your trauma therapy sessions go slow or fast, take place individually or with your partner or another loved one present, it’s important that they help you feel empowered and supported. 

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Contact me today to schedule a consultation.