Trauma Therapy

Trauma is not always easily recognizable and can take different forms for different people. It's important to remember that trauma is based on how an event impacted you, rather than a universal definition.  Think of trauma as an experience that had a significant impact on your overall well-being, leaving you feeling distressed, overwhelmed, and struggling to cope  for  an  extended  period of  time. It might have affected you emotionally, physically, or even changed the way you see yourself and the world around you.  The effects of trauma can manifest in various ways. For example, you might find yourself constantly on edge, feeling anxious or hypervigilant. You might have difficulty sleeping, experience mood swings, or find it challenging to trust others. These reactions are your mind and body's way of trying to protect you.  It's important to recognize that trauma is not a measure of your strength or character. It's simply a response to a distressing event that overwhelmed your ability to cope at that time. It's understandable to struggle with acknowledging trauma, but remember that seeking support and understanding can be crucial in your healing journey.

Trauma Therapy involves a specific evidenced based modality such as EMDR, IFS or TF-CBT. These evidenced models use very specific techniques such as movement, parts-work, and story telling to reprocess the traumatic memories and integrate them in a less distressing way. After engaging in trauma therapy, clients describe having less distress from their past memories, and more control over their lives. Clients who complete trauma therapy have significantly less trauma symptoms and feel as if they “are back in control over their life again, not stuck in the past.” Finding a therapist that is trained in a trauma modality is key. As clients begin to work on their trauma in therapy, they often notice a decrease in anxiety, depression, flashbacks, emotional behavioral issues, nightmares, chronic stress and more. Trauma therapy is more than just talking about the bad things that happened. Creative modalities such as art, music, play etc can also be incorporated to trauma therapy. 

Did you know that traumatic memories are stored differently in the brain? Because of the way trauma is stored in our body, we are often stuck in some very unhelpful trauma behaviors and are easily triggered. Processing trauma memories requires more than just simply “talking about what happened.” By engaging in trauma therapy, clients are guided through specific techniques in session to create a new pathway in the brain. Through this process clients can actually reprocess and store traumatic memories in a new less harmful way. The body is then able to regulate and move forward past the trauma into new coping mechanisms and a new hopeful way of living life. 

A Trauma Therapist is a licensed clinician who receives specialized training in an evidence based trauma modality. Evidenced based trauma treatments such as EMDR, IFS or TF-CBT are considered the standard for trauma recovery. Receiving a credentialed in one of these modalities requires hours of hands on training, hours of consultation and supervision, and sometimes a credentialing test. able to use modalities like these. Trauma treatment should involve more than simply talking about trauma, healing trauma treatment should include the body in the process through simple, nonthreatening directives such as bilateral movement, breath work, regulation, etc.