Trauma Therapy

Do You Keep Thinking About Your Past?

Have you experienced a single incident trauma, abuse, or neglect that you can’t seem to let go of? When something awful happens, it may be impossible to forget the sights, the sounds, the experience, and the memory. This may result in physical symptoms of trauma including headaches, overwhelmed, anxiety, racing heart, poor concentration, or feeling numb.

You may even be experiencing flashbacks, feeling as if you are reliving the event all over again. Leading you to avoid certain people, places, or situations. It’s possible that you have distanced yourself from loved ones and friends. Do you wish you could find a way to no longer experience the effects that trauma has caused?

Living with aftereffects of trauma symptoms can be painful. You may be having difficulty getting daily tasks done because you worry that an interaction, thought, or emotion will trigger a traumatic memory. You may not even know why you certain people or places are causing triggers for you. As a result, relationships may be suffering for you. Trauma therapy may help.

Trauma Is Very Common

Traumatic events can occur after something happens that overwhelms your ability to cope. There are single incident traumas- events like a car accident, assault, break-up, an abusive relationship, betrayal, etc. There are also prolonged traumas- domestic violence and/or childhood abuse or neglect.

Regardless of your particular trauma, you didn’t ask or deserve this. We may not be able to fix what happened to us, but we can find ways to move on and create a brighter future for yourself. With the help of a trauma therapist, using EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, it is possible to process the traumatic experience and reduce the charge it takes over you.

Trauma Therapy Can Help You

When we experience a traumatic event, memories get stored in the network of our brain that causes emotional and behavioral reactions which cause you to experience a whole range of symptoms- flashbacks, anxiety, decreased concentrations, panic attacks, etc. These symptoms can be relieved through Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and/or Somatic Attachment Therapy. During your treatment, EMDR therapy works with both the mind and body. Our brains have a natural way of recovering after a traumatic memory or event. Instead of talking in detail about the distressing issue, EMDR therapy focuses on changing the emotions, thoughts, or behaviors resulting from the distressing issue. As a result, this allows the brain to resume its natural healing process to change your perception of the event so it is no longer as disturbing.

Because everyone’s experience with trauma is different, our therapists use different approaches based on your needs. We are here to help you resolve your trauma, understand yourself better, and learn new coping skills to regain your life back.

During sessions, we will always listen and provide you with feedback. We focus on providing you with a safe space that you can be yourself and express what you have gone through. Drawing from different therapy modalities, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness, we will help you change your thoughts & feelings around your trauma. Through our work together, we will check in to see what is working and not working.

Healing after trauma is possible and we are trained to help you through trauma counseling.

You May Still Have Questions or Concerns about Trauma Treatment…

I don’t understand how EMDR therapy works for trauma; can you explain it?

We first teach you about trauma and how it affects you. You’ll learn how to identify and work with the triggers.

We will then go through a process of questions with you to help you understand your strengths, what is difficult for you to do, and what you do when you are in pain. This allows us to further understand your patterns to reduce the stress your body may feel. Using a mindfulness approach and setting you up with grounding tools before you start the real work. These grounding tools consist of meditations, breathing, and visualization exercises.

We will combine that with bilateral stimulation such as “eye movements and tapping” which activates the right and left sides of the brain to recall the traumatic memories.

Basically, we separate the negative feelings from the memories and allow your brain to reprocess them. Then we install new positive feelings about the memories so you can feel better.

As a result, you will be able to access the memory without feeling overwhelmed or reacting as you once did.

I’m worried about how much time and money I will need to spend on EMDR therapy.

Since everyone has different traumas that they go through, the amount of time and money spent on therapy can vary. That is why we accept insurance such as Blue Cross Blue Shield. First, we have to figure out what we are going to work on, find the memories that go with that issue, and go into the memory network. When we get into a memory network, there may be a lot there that you didn’t know would come up! That being said, it can take anywhere from 6 months to a year to complete EMDR therapy.

While EMDR therapy takes time, it is an investment in yourself. By addressing the pain now, you can heal your past and live the life you have wanted to live.

What are the side effects?

Sometimes there is a temporary increase in distress. During a session, you may experience emotional and physical sensations. In between sessions, you may experience dreams, memories, feelings, and  flashbacks- Don’t worry, since they are no longer happening, they won’t hurt you!