Trauma Therapy
What is Trauma?
Trauma is an emotional reaction to a highly distressing event, resulting in challenges in daily functioning or coping normally after the event. Trauma can leave you struggling with unpredictable emotions, disturbing memories, relationship difficulties and anxiety that won’t go away. It can also leave you feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people. When bad things happen, it can take a while to get over the pain and feel safe again. Often times traumatic events lead to symptoms associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, or learning that a traumatic event has happened to a loved one. Some typical symptoms include:
-Flashbacks, or feeling like the event is happening again
-Trouble sleeping or nightmares
-Feeling alone
-Angry outbursts
-Feeling worried, guilty, or sad
and more
Examples Of Traumatic Events Include:
- death of family member, lover, friend, teacher, or pet
- divorce
- physical pain or injury (e.g. severe car accident)
- serious illness
- war
- natural disasters
- terrorism
- moving to a new location
- parental abandonment
- witnessing a death
- rape
- domestic abuse
- prison stay
- and more…
How Can Trauma Therapy Help?
The main 3 goals of trauma therapy involve, improving symptoms, learning skills to manage symptoms, and restore your self esteem. I can help you develop the skills and strategies to better understand, cope with, and process the emotions and memories tied to a traumatic experience, with the end goal of creating a healthier and more adaptive meaning for that experience in the context of your life. This type of therapy is rooted in understanding the connection between the traumatic experience and the individual’s emotional and behavioral responses.
Maybe you’ve been blaming yourself for something. We will help you take into account all the things that were out of your control, help you move forward in understanding and accepting that things were not your fault regardless of things you did or didn’t do.
We will teach you techniques to ease your anxiety when you think about what happened. Together we will make a list of the things you have been avoiding and take steps towards facing them, one, by one.
Your trauma does not define you. Change the way you think today. Give us a call to schedule your first appointment!