Trauma Therapy & PTSD Treatment

Traumatic stress results when we experience or witness a particularly threatening, scary, or dangerous situation or loss, especially when feeling helpless or unsafe. When this level of threat occurs, the experience can become "frozen" in our brain. This is traumatic stress. 

Along with the memory of the traumatic event are the negative feelings, thoughts, and sensations associated with that experience.

For example, you might: 

• experience distressing memories or dreams
• feel your life lacks pleasure due to feeling numb
• find yourself preparing for the worst
• find it difficult to let go of tense feelings, even when trying to sleep

Over time, if you think of the experience again, all the negative thoughts, feelings, and sensations can flood back in as the experience or trauma memory is not yet fully processed.

For example, when reminded of the experience:

• you might notice that you feel anxious,
• your heart starts racing,
• your breathing increases and becomes more shallow,
• you feel like withdrawing or avoiding the situation,
• and you may have intrusive thoughts about the experience.

These are all indicators of traumatic stress.

If you’re experiencing flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive memories of the trauma, you may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.  

PTSD can occur following an event that is threatening or feels overwhelming or uncontrollable. It can be a specific event such as an accident, rape, war, natural disaster, or a death of a loved one. It can also be an ongoing stressor such as abuse, interpersonal conflict, abandonment, bullying, or prolonged stress.

In these situations, people often experience a lack of safety or control or a sense of powerlessness or helplessness. You also don’t have to experience the situation first-hand to develop PTSD. People who witness or hear about trauma from others can also develop PTSD. PTSD symptoms can begin soon after the event, or months, even years later.

When you have PTSD, the symptoms seem to stick around and don’t get better with time.

The symptoms may arise suddenly or when triggered by something reminding you of the traumatic experience. PTSD treatment can be an important tool to help you learn to feel safe and secure again.

Typically, PTSD symptoms fall into the following categories:

1. Stressor: experiencing, witnessing or indirectly experiencing (such as via someone else) a significant threat (or perceived threat) to one’s life or safety.
2. The stressor is intrusive: you re-experience the traumatic event via intrusive memories, nightmares, flashbacks, high levels of stress in response to reminders of the event, and/or physical symptoms in response to reminders.
3. Avoidance: you tend to avoid thoughts or feelings reminding you of the trauma as well as reminders such as people and places.
4. Impact on your thoughts and mood: you may experience an inability to remember details, have negative beliefs about oneself (e.g., “I am bad”), blame yourself or others for the trauma, experience negative emotions (fear, horror, anger, shame), have a lack of interest in significant activities, and/or an inability to experience positive emotions.
5. Reactivity and arousal: you may experience irritability, reckless behavior, hypervigilance, heightened startle response, difficulty concentrating, and/or sleep disturbance.
6. Detachment: for some people (not all), you may feel detached from oneself or as if things aren’t real.

PTSD can be very scary both emotionally and physically. If you are experiencing PTSD symptoms or have been diagnosed with PTSD, it’s important to recognize them and know that help is available. It might feel overwhelming to imagine even thinking about the source of your PTSD again. But trauma therapy can be an effective way to treat PTSD symptoms, without re-experiencing past traumas. 

In trauma and PTSD treatment, one of our experienced, compassionate trauma specialists can help you work with your body, emotions, identity and beliefs to find healing.

Complex trauma is the same as developmental trauma (developmental trauma disorder). It may also be referred to as relational trauma. 

Complex trauma refers to trauma that is repeated, or part of everyday life vs. a specific traumatic event. It impacts a child's ongoing development and typically occurs within a child's primary environment. Examples are lack of caregiving or repeated abuse, neglect, abandonment, separation, bullying, betrayal of trust or criticism by a caregiver. 

Complex trauma impacts a child's attachment system and can have long-term impacts on future relationships as well. 

Experiencing complex trauma can shape your view of yourself and the world where you see yourself negatively. Perhaps you struggle with shame and a harsh inner critic. You might have difficulty with emotion regulation and feel reactive to things others simply find annoying. You might find it hard to trust others or blame yourself when things go wrong. You might find yourself working hard to people please or strive for perfectionist standards to avoid disappointing anyone. 

Complex, developmental or relational trauma can be healed through attachment focused trauma therapy. There is hope! 

The benefits of trauma therapy are both physical and psychological.

Physical Health Benefits of Trauma Therapy:

The effects of trauma are felt throughout the body and have been shown to contribute significantly to long-term health complications such as: 

Learn more about the emotional impact of trauma and how to heal in our webinar. 

PTSD symptoms often include painful flashbacks of the event. You may worry that talking about the trauma will cause this to happen. These feelings are completely understandable.

But, avoiding talking or thinking about your traumatic experience won’t make it go away. Rather, you may become afraid not only of the event itself, but of anything that triggers memories of it. This can limit your life and keep you from feeling free.

Your therapist can help you move through the trauma recovery process at your own pace and make sure that you feel safe at all times. The treatment process may be difficult at times, but your therapist can help you begin to experience the world as a safe place.

Typically, it is not necessary to focus on a traumatic memory in order to heal and complete trauma processing. Treatment for PTSD and trauma is focused instead on helping you get unstuck and feeling safe and secure.

We are often told that time heals all wounds.

Unfortunately after a trauma, people replay events, experience flashbacks and get stuck in a loop of persistent thoughts and images of the events.

Further, trauma impacts everyone differently and can lead to an anxiety disorder, depression, compulsive behaviors such as overeating and eating disorder, or substance abuse, or even posttraumatic stress disorder.

You may feel stuck, with your normal fight or flight responses disrupted. Instead of being able to move forward, you feel frozen. Being stuck can affect your ability to stand up for yourself. You may struggle to be assertive. It can be hard to express anger, hard to say no, and this can have negative effects on your life.

All of these things are difficult to understand and move through without help. There is no shame in seeking help and support while working through trauma. You don’t have to stay stuck, and your therapist can help you recover from trauma as easily as possible.

Maybe the description of developmental trauma above resonated with you, but you don’t remember any traumas from childhood. It is very common not to remember events that you experienced as traumatic in childhood. And it can be hard to figure out the origin of symptoms you are struggling with now.

The bottom line, however, is that if you are experiencing trauma symptoms that are impacting your ability to feel good and function with ease, it may be worth exploring your symptoms and history with one of our trauma therapists.