Trauma Therapy
Do You Keep Reliving The Same Traumatic Events In Your Head?
Are you constantly ruminating on traumatic experiences that you’ve never been able to shake?
Do you struggle to maintain healthy relationships because of avoidant or anxious behavioral patterns?
Have you been pushing yourself to just “get over” your trauma for years—yet you finally feel like you’ve hit a wall, and you’re barely getting by?
Maybe you suffered an unexpected loss, survived assault, dealt with abuse or neglect within your family of origin, or experienced betrayal or abuse in a romantic relationship. Now, you feel like you’re afraid to let your guard down for fear that you could get hurt again. You might be physically jumpy and hypervigilant or dread going to bed because you have recurring nightmares or ruminating thoughts that keep you awake at night. You live on the edge, always in ‘ready mode’, and you’re never able to fully relax or “let go.”
Trauma Can Interfere With Forming Healthy Relationships
Avoidant or anxious behavior patterns can function as survival strategies for people with past trauma. You might repeatedly fall into codependent or toxic, controlling relationships or engage in avoidant behaviors around friends or romantic partners, cutting off or unintentionally sabotaging potential connections before they really begin. Alternatively, abandonment trauma might lead you to seek out casual flings with people who don’t genuinely care about you in an attempt to feel loved and wanted. You feel lonely, yet you don’t know how to break out of these defeating relational patterns.
Day after day, you might ruminate or “dwell” on memories of trauma, and you wish these events from your past didn’t overwhelm your focus and capacity to function in the present. You may find yourself wondering about the life you could lead if only you could recover and let go of the past painful experiences that over-shadow your life today. Through therapy, you can finally shift out of the painful patterns of the past into a new, positive phase of your life reconnected to your authentic self and how you truly want to live today.
Traumatic Experiences Are More Common Than You Might Think
It’s easy to assume that your traumatic experiences have made you an outlier, but in reality, millions of people have lived through trauma, and many people struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in silence.
It’s true that no two traumatic experiences are exactly alike, and people can react to such events in very different ways. Yet, lots of people with past trauma grapple with the same negative, despairing thoughts and feelings of low self-worth. They may have unmet developmental needs that leave them unfairly comparing themselves to other people in their age group and putting themselves down because they haven’t hit the same milestones as their peers.
Trauma Survivors Are Still Misunderstood
Nowadays, the stigma around sharing traumatic experiences has lessened. While this is good news, the complex, lasting effects of trauma are still widely misunderstood. When someone encounters a triggering situation that sets off a survival response in their nervous system, other people who don’t know their history might jump to negative conclusions and perceive them as immature, overly sensitive, or an uncaring partner. In reality, a person with past trauma or PTSD might be doing everything in their power just to function. Yet, the survival mechanisms they’ve developed don’t make sense to other people and interfere with their quality of life.
Many people who have lived through trauma tell themselves that they should “toughen up”, soldier on, or “to just get over it.” But an individual who wants to heal from trauma needs an accurate understanding of their circumstances, effective tools, and a third-party point of view to help them find their way through the places where they may be feeling stuck or lost. A therapist can provide a valuable new perspective and spark your motivation to commit to healing.
Trauma Therapy Can Help You Move Beyond “Survival Mode”
Trauma can get in the way of creating supportive relationships, but by connecting with a therapist, you can enjoy a sense of safety that allows you to be vulnerable and face challenging issues. You’re hardwired to prioritize survival, and your nervous system’s response to trauma primes you to run in “survival mode” each day, which leaves you drained, with little energy for anything else. But co-creating a positive therapeutic relationship in a secure environment can empower you so that you’re able to truly thrive.
What To Expect In Trauma Therapy Sessions
During your first sessions, your therapist will aim to help you gain clarity on your specific traumatic experiences. You’ll explore your story through a lens of self-compassion and understanding. Your therapist will help you see how your current behavioral and thought patterns work as attempts to “keep things together,” and they’ll show you how to create conditions that allow your nervous system to shift out of survival mode.
Treatment Approaches For Trauma Therapy
Because there is no “one size fits all” method for healing from trauma or PTSD, your counselor will devise a unique treatment plan based on your personal experiences and goals. Because lots of people who have lived through trauma have difficulty with emotional regulation and staying calm while navigating stressful situations, your therapist might incorporate techniques drawn from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) to help you maintain emotional stability. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can be beneficial for rewriting limiting beliefs about yourself and your capabilities that you’ve developed as a result of trauma.
Additionally, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) allows you to fully process past trauma that still shows up mentally or somatically and with images, thoughts, emotions, or sensations when painful memories are triggered and become reactivated. People often hold on to trauma in their bodies for a long time after the event has passed, and through EMDR, you can finally release this lingering physical tension and stuck emotional energy held in your body to allow for a change in your thinking and a shift away from unhealthy behavior patterns.
Your therapist will also help you identify these problematic patterns that you might have adopted to cope with your symptoms, like substance abuse, avoidance or high intensity in relationships, compulsive/indiscriminate sexual activity, or other high-risk behaviors. They’ll guide you in deconstructing these patterns, explore why they no longer benefit you and assist you in developing healthier habits. You’ll understand why you turned to these behaviors in the first place and gradually adopt behavioral patterns that better support your emotional and physical wellbeing. Because healing and recovery is deep inside work, other practices that help you connect to and express what's inside - like the expressive arts through writing, music, or mindful moment practices like yoga - are encouraged and cultivated with the guidance of your therapist to create a supportive and cathartic practice that best suites and uniquely fits you.
You do not have to continue living with the shadow of trauma hanging over your head. With guidance from a qualified therapist, you will strengthen your relationships, reclaim your agency, and create a life that makes you feel eager to wake up each day.
But You May Still Have Questions About Trauma Therapy…
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Shame and guilt are actually common symptoms of trauma. We’re wired to try to maintain a sense of control over our own lives, and holding on to the idea that you somehow could have stopped the traumatic event—even if you were a child or young adult when it occurred—may be serving as a psychological protective mechanism. You are not to blame for your trauma, and counseling can help you let go of this lingering guilt.
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Comparing your own challenges to others will not help you overcome your trauma. Viewing yourself as a survivor and minimizing your own pain may have helped you carry on with your life up to this point, but no matter what you have been through, you deserve professional support for your personal healing journey.
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Regardless of what’s happened to you or how long you’ve been dealing with the effects of past trauma, it’s never too late to build a life that you truly love. Perhaps you’ve dealt with trauma in the context of other relationships, but on the other hand, deep healing can happen through a supportive therapeutic relationship. Often, connecting with a compassionate therapist opens up a path to healing and revives your hope for the future.
Through Therapy, You Can Get Back In The “Driver’s Seat” Of Your Own Life
If trauma has been holding you back from building healthy relationships, feeling comfortable in your own skin, and creating a meaningful life, therapy can help you move forward. To book a free 15-minute consultation to learn more about therapy services or to schedule your first session, we invite you to fill out our scheduling form.
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