Trauma Therapy
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
What is Trauma?
Trauma therapy is one of the most widely sought types of therapies today. So what exactly is trauma? Trauma is an emotional response to an event or series of negative events. When your senses are stretched to their max, trauma happens, and you are left with a negative “imprint”. The most familiar type of trauma is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) associated with military combat. While PTSD significantly impacts soldiers, military combat is not the only way to experience this type of trauma. By definition, PTSD is a mental health disorder that happens when the mental or emotional stressors of an event cause a severe psychological shock. The event thereby results in negative symptoms such as feeling possessed by past events or the inability to engage in daily life.
Types of Trauma
A common misconception about trauma is that it only occurs when you’ve experienced a specific “one time” event. Yes, some people experience “one-time” trauma-causing events. However, about half of individuals that are suffering from trauma inherited their trauma over time through a series of events.
Another type of trauma is Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). CPTSD occurs when a person lives in a chronically stressful environment for a long period of time. Child abuse, neglect, or abusive relationships (even as an adult) are often the catalyst for CPTSD. These situations often cause the individual to live in a heightened state of alertness, something our senses were never designed to do. The result is a similar response to that of victims of PTSD. You can see the similarities (and differences) between these two diagnoses in the table below.
PTSD
CPTSD
How It Happens
- One time event
- Short lived trauma
- Chronic interpersonal trauma
- Chronically feeling unsafe
- Chronic abuse
- Child abuse
Symptoms
- Flashbacks
- Nightmares or insomnia
- Feeling “out of your body”
- Feeling on edge when you are in the same or similar environment where trauma took place
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Difficulty regulating emotions
- Flashbacks
- Nightmares or insomnia
- Difficulty in relationships
- Feeling on edge around others
- Feeling on edge in new environments
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Difficulty regulating emotions
- Feeling abandoned
- Distrust of the world
- Distorted perception of perpetrator or preoccupied with perpetrator
Trauma Therapy
Treatment for PTSD, CPTSD, and similar symptoms have improved dramatically over the last 20 years. EMDR is the most effective treatment for trauma. Most of our therapists are EMDR trained and can help you resolve the trauma in your life.
