Trauma

Trauma

If you’ve experienced a traumatic event either directly or indirectly, you may now be experiencing feelings of intense fear, helplessness, or horror. These intense symptoms of anxiety were not present before you experienced the traumatic event, but now you might be feeling anxious all the time.

Many of us, at one time in our lives, have experienced some form of trauma.

These episodes could be the obvious things like car accidents, natural disasters, shootings, or even physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. In fact, studies show that about 8% of the adult population of the US will experience symptoms of trauma in their lifetime.

A trauma can occur anytime a person experiences an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury.

It can also occur when you are a witness to an event that threatened death, serious injury, or threat to another person. Trauma can even occur upon learning about the unexpected death, serious injury or harm experienced by a loved one. Some of the symptoms common in this circumstance are intense fear, helplessness, horror. It could include reliving the episode in your thoughts, or having recurring nightmares. This level of distress is most likely causing you to have challenges at work or in your relationships.

Many of us also suffer from invisible emotional and relational trauma that block us from attaining our goals and keep us stuck in the past.

This trauma is usually relayed to us through messages that we receive from important people in our lives (like family), or the environment (school, workplace). When we repeatedly receive negative messages about ourselves we begin to internalize them and view our world and relationships through this negative lens. Some common beliefs that develop are: “I don’t matter,” “I am not good enough”, and “I am defective.” When we begin to see the world through this lens of negative cognition, we can become stuck.

Much has been written about trauma and neglect and the damage they do to the brain. However, therapy has the potential to heal these wounds. We at Pineapples Therapy believe that individuals possess natural strategies for repair. This allows them to overcome tremendous adversities and still move forward towards health. The primary goal of our trauma work here at Pineapples Therapy is to facilitate a process of re-establishing personal power and control. Through this process the traumatic event becomes just an experience, as opposed to a completely defining moment in life. This traumatic event will no longer have to define who you are.

You might feel like you have successfully contained the trauma. You might feel like you are actually coping quite well “considering”. However, there is hope for better. Through the counseling process you can move beyond surviving and start thriving.

Counseling gives the opportunity for you to create healthier, more adaptive ways of coping.

Research shows that one of the most effective treatments for PTSD is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR. This is a therapy that is best known for it’s use of eye movements. It combines bilateral brain stimulation, through eye movements, tactile taps, or auditory tones, and dual attention to reprocess client’s negative beliefs about themselves and distressing events. 

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing helps clients to reprocess distress, reintegrate information, and make more adaptive connections. Often when something traumatic happens, it seems to get locked in the nervous system with the original picture, sounds, thoughts, feelings, and so on. Since the experience is locked there, it continues to be triggered whenever a reminder comes up.  It can be the basis for a lot of negative emotions, such as fear and helplessness, that we can't seem to control. 

Additionally, it isn’t just the traumatic event alone that causes distress and impairs functioning; it is the message the client tells themselves about what the event means about them as a person.

We have clinicians trained in both EMDR and Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or TF-CBT. This is an evidence based counseling modality that aims to resolve a broad array of emotional and behavioral difficulties associated with trauma.

We know that there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” approach to therapy and we create an individualized and customized treatment plan for each client, regardless of presenting issues.

Anxiety becomes a disorder when the symptoms become chronic and interfere with our daily lives and ability to function.