Trauma Counseling
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING TRAUMA SYMPTOMS…
EMOTIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA SYMPTOMS INCLUDE:
PHYSICAL TRAUMA SYMPTOMS INCLUDE:
Insomnia or nightmares
Fatigue and excessive sleepiness
Racing heartbeat or tightness in your chest
Being easily startled by sounds and other people
Body aches and pains
Muscle tension
Headaches
General edginess and agitation
WHAT IS EMOTIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA?
Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of massive prolonged stress. This stressful event(s) or experience(s) completely shatters your sense of security. It makes you feel helpless and like you are living in a dangerous world.
Psychological trauma can leave you grappling with troubling emotions, memories, and anxiety that will not go away on their own. You may feel numb or disconnected, and have a hard time opening up and trusting other people.
Generally, traumatic experiences can involve a threat to your safety or even your life; however, it does not always have to be so extreme. Any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and alone can trigger trauma, even if there is no physical harm.
Instead of looking at the objective situation, when it comes to trauma, your subjective emotional experience of the event is what is important, particularly concerning your mental health. The more scared or powerless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized after the event.
Generally, the causes of emotional and psychological trauma can be broadly categorized into three main areas:
One-time events - This can be an accident, injury, or a violent attack. This event can be especially traumatic if it occurred during childhood or was unexpected.
Commonly overlooked causes - Occurrences, such as surgery, the sudden passing of a loved one, the breakup of a significant romantic relationship, a humiliating experience, or other life transitions can easily lead to trauma.
Ongoing, restless stress - Examples of ongoing, restless stress can include battling substance abuse or addiction or experiencing repeated traumatic events, such as domestic violence, bullying, or childhood neglect.
CAN I HAVE TRAUMA IF I DID NOT EXPERIENCE THE EVENT DIRECTLY?
Many of us have been through a traumatic event. In some cases, you may hear or witness a traumatic event that shakes you up. Even though you did not experience it directly, it can cause a lot of anxiety and uncertainty to bubble up inside of you.
The media has sensationalized a lot of events which may cause you to feel constantly on edge. For example, you may constantly read about political division in the news and this can easily cause anxiety and, in some cases, depression.
Other serious instances, like a terrorist attack or plane crash can leave you feeling like you live in a constant state of nervousness. For example, let us say that following a mass school shooting, you begin to worry about the safety of your child or teen attending school. You are hounded with horrific images on the news and social media of the event.
Viewing these images over and over can actually overwhelm your nervous system, causing traumatic stress. In this specific case, you could work with an anxiety therapist who will help you manage your stress levels.
WHAT IS CHILDHOOD TRAUMA?
We often think that children can “bounce back” from anything. While children are resilient, traumatic experiences can lead to serious and enduring issues, especially if the trauma goes untreated. This is why working with a childhood trauma therapist is so important.
Trauma can occur to anyone, but you are more likely to be traumatized if you have:
Been under a heavy stress load
Recently suffered from a loss or a series of losses
Been traumatized before (e.g., childhood trauma)
Childhood trauma results from anything that leaves a child feeling helpless, getting rid of their sense of safety and security.
Some examples of childhood trauma include:
Sexual abuse
Physical abuse
Verbal abuse
Domestic violence
Unstable or unsafe environment
Separation from a parent
Neglect
Bullying
Serious illness
Intrusive medical procedures
When childhood trauma goes unresolved, it can cause a sense of fear and helplessness that will follow you into adulthood. This enhances your trauma.
HOW CAN CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AFFECT ME AS AN ADULT?
The healthiest response to trauma is dealing with your emotions and processing the event as soon as it occurs. Unfortunately, this is one of the rarest trauma responses. This can be especially difficult for a child to do. It is painful to work through emotions like anger and sadness and a child may not even know how to do it.
The impact of childhood trauma into adulthood is complex. It depends on the trauma and the child themself. For example, a child may have grown up in a household where any minor issue or display of emotions turned into a screaming match. As an adult, they may continue to live on eggshells, and avoid showing emotion to romantic partners or other family members out of fear of an argument.
Children learn to adapt by withholding their own emotions. If untreated, childhood trauma can become a crack in the foundation that you build your life upon. When you seek therapy for childhood trauma, you are investing in your future.
Studies have shown that there can be significant, long-term effects of such experiences in childhood. Early intervention and support is key in repairing a child’s self-image and trust in their environment.
HOW CAN A TRAUMA THERAPIST AT ANCHOR THERAPY HELP ME?
Whether you are overcoming past trauma or attempting to navigate life after a traumatic incident, searching for the help of a trauma therapist is a great first step! Trauma focused therapy gives you the space to process past events, address memories, and empowers you to go on and live the life of your dreams. While it will be hard to do, it is possible to move on from this event and not let it define you.
The best way to take that brave step forward is working with a trauma informed therapist. By doing so, you will begin to learn to become more aware of your trauma, your triggers, and how to react to them. Your complex trauma therapist will help you with a range of fears, provide tips on healthy coping mechanisms, and instruct on the different environmental factors at play.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM TRAUMA FOCUSED THERAPY AT ANCHOR THERAPY:
Trauma-informed therapy was designed to connect the body and mind in order to fully heal and manage any symptoms that may arise. Using experiential and cognitive treatments help the client to be able to process their trauma, and reduce their symptoms in the moment.
TRAUMA-INFORMED THERAPY TECHNIQUES INCLUDE:
Somatic Experiencing/ Mindfulness:
You will work on relaxation to help control and understand your body when experiencing symptoms of trauma.
Mindful breathing for when you are feel disoriented, have racing thoughts, or experience a sudden change in mood
Sensory work to help you identify what sounds, smells, and tastes help you to relax, as well as identifying sensory triggers to trauma symptoms
Grounding exercises such as progressive muscle relaxation to work on being more present in your life from moment to moment
Trauma Focused CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy):
This allows you to identify and change the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that have become connected to your trauma. Trauma focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a short-term intervention. You will learn to modify distorted thinking, and negative reactions and behaviors in CBT trauma focused therapy. When you learn to challenge your intrusive thoughts of guilt and fear in trauma CBT therapy, you can reorganize your thinking in a healthier and happier way.
Narrative Therapy Techniques:
This experiential component is addressed after you have worked through relaxation techniques and will focus on the trauma at a pace that allows you to feel safe
Trauma narrative is used to help you make sense of the experience, releasing the memories that have been buried deep in your mind
Re-storying is the next step which involves going over the experience multiple times in order to reduce and eventually remove feelings of shame and self-blame. This allows you to take control over the narrative, and also open your mind to looking at positive aspects of life
Exposure Therapy:
Prolonged Exposure Therapy for trauma is commonly used to help people confront their fears. It’s a specific type of CBT that teaches you how to gradually approach trauma-related memories, feelings, and places. When you avoid your trauma, you are giving it unnecessary power over you. There are two forms of exposure in Trauma Exposure Therapy:
Imaginal exposure is where you describe the event in a lot of detail. You do so in the present tense with safe guidance from your trauma therapist.
In vivo exposure is when you confront your fears outside of trauma counseling, often assigned as homework. You and your trauma informed therapist will work together to identify multiple stimuli and situations that are connected to your traumatic fear.
5. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy:
EMDR therapy is an extremely popular psychotherapy approach to help you process traumatic events so you can heal from your distress and move on with your life. EMDR involves both CBT and bilateral stimulation, including side-to-side eye movements, taps, or specific tones. The idea is that, while you are experiencing bilateral stimulation, you focus on the traumatic memory. This process will continue again and again until the memory becomes less traumatic to you. Your EMDR therapist will help you think more positively to replace negative thoughts. EMDR is also a somatic therapy so you will be asked to observe your physical response.
FEELINGS OF SAFETY ARE AT THE HEART OF ALL TRAUMA THERAPY.
WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF TRAUMA COUNSELING?
Regardless of what trauma-informed therapy technique you and your trauma therapist decide on, the main objective of trauma counseling is always the same- for you to feel like your best self again.
Some basic goals of trauma based therapy encompass:
Help you regain your “personal power”
To successfully understand and grasp the reality of the traumatic event that occurred to you in the past
To lessen or completely eliminate your trauma symptoms
To shift your focus from the past event to the present
To teach you the important coping skills necessary to prevent regression
Help you get over addiction or other negative life factors that may have been caused by your trauma
Teach you about hereditary trauma (Intergenerational trauma is when one family member, perhaps a parent, passes down their trauma to future generations)
Enhance your day-to-day functioning
These goals are feasible, but be gentle with yourself. They will take time to achieve. From working through flashbacks to battling self-blame, trauma therapy can effectively treat your automatic responses that result from your trauma.
EXAMPLES OF HOW TRAUMA INFORMED THERAPY CAN HELP:
Even if you feel better on some days, trauma can sneak back in and trouble you with painful memories and emotions from time-to-time, particularly if certain triggers are present. For example, your trauma symptoms may surge around the time of the anniversary of the traumatic event.
If your psychological trauma symptoms do not ease up or if they become worse, you may find that you are unable to move on from the traumatic event for a lengthy period of time. If this is the case for you, you may be experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD refers to when you remain in psychological shock, and are unable to make sense out of what happened or process your emotions. A PTSD therapist can help.
PTSD treatments range, but CBT therapy for PTSD has been shown to be effective. CBT focuses on the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When you change one domain, you inevitably alter the others. CBT for PTSD helps you re-evaluate your thinking patterns and assumptions so you can recognize unhealthy thinking patterns, like overgeneralizing negative outcomes or always expecting the worst case scenario situation to occur.
After you experience a traumatic event, you may develop connections with reminders of the event, meaning, and your response. Cognitive processing therapy for PTSD works to break down the associations you created. Your connections may have led to unhealthy functioning so, removing the associations, is critical.
Exposure therapy for PTSD is another popular PTSD treatment. Trauma exposure therapy is considered a behavioral treatment for PTSD.
Exposure Therapy targets learned behaviors that people do when faced with situations or thoughts that:
Trigger the trauma
Are frightening
Become anxiety-provoking
After experiencing a traumatic event, you may develop avoidance where you steer clear of certain places or other things that may serve as a reminder of your trauma. For example, you may have experienced sexual abuse at college. Now, as a result of your trauma, you avoid that particular spot of campus. In prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD, you will confront feared objects, activities, or situations under the guidance of a PTSD therapist.
In order to provide true trauma-informed therapy, your therapist will first work on helping you feel emotionally and physically safe in the therapy room. You will learn coping skills, self-care tools, and relaxation techniques to use at home. Your trauma specialized therapist will always move at a pace that feels good for you with respect and understanding. The effects of trauma sometimes feel overwhelming and endless. The most important thing to remember is the symptoms and the trauma are not who you are, but how your brain makes sense of an extreme situation. Whatever the experience may be, you have survived it and deserve to live a full and happy life.
Therapy is a great way to stay accountable towards feeling like your best self and working towards your goals. At Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, NJ, we believe therapy can truly be for anyone and everyone. There is always something that someone wants to change or manage in their life.
THE STEPS OF GETTING TRAUMA COUNSELING:
WORKING WITH US IS EASY
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Our intake coordinator will get back to you with more information on how we can help and to schedule an appointment. We will set you up with an experienced licensed therapist who specializes in what you're seeking help with and who understands your needs.
You’ll rest easy tonight knowing you made the first step to improve your life.
