Trauma Therapy
What is trauma?
Trauma is an experience that often continues to live through physical sensations and psychological stressors well after the traumatic event, relationship or experience have ended. Gabor Mate describes trauma best stating “trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you”.
Trauma therapy is designed to provide support and guidance in helping individuals create the necessary emotional space to explore and comprehend the effects of past traumatic events on their inner selves. Through this process, individuals can gain valuable insights into their triggers and develop effective strategies to navigate life with a greater sense of fulfillment and well-being.
Ways Trauma May Show Up Now
Trauma symptoms can manifest in various ways, affecting individuals both mentally and physically. These symptoms may include intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, hypervigilance, and avoiding reminders of the traumatic event. Additionally, individuals may experience changes in mood, such as irritability, anger, or a persistent sense of sadness. Many people notice difficulty in maintaining relationships, feeling safe or being able to trust others.
Physiological manifestations like insomnia, difficulty concentrating, and heightened startle response are also common. It is crucial to recognize these symptoms and seek professional help to address the impact of trauma on overall well-being.
Trauma Treatment: What Is EMDR?
EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a popular research-backed therapeutic treatment that effectively treats trauma and helps people who have experienced disturbing life experiences process and heal from distressing emotions and physical symptoms. Not only is EMDR effective, but in some instances it can help treat trauma in a shorter period of time. When engaging in EMDR therapy with a skilled clinician, you will be guided to safely explore traumatic experiences while simultaneously focusing on an external sensation which engages both sides of your brain. These external sensations are most commonly therapist-directed eye movements, but can also include other stimuli including consensual hand-tapping or the use of a device that can create vibrations that vibrate back and forth between the client’s hands. By doing so, you are exploring your past while being securely grounded in present sensations. EMDR is a gentle process in which your therapist will guide you to explore and process past memories to integrate them into your present life without distressing symptoms, whether that be PTSD or other mental health diagnoses like depression, anxiety, OCD, self-esteem issues, or eating disorders, all of which can be affected by trauma.
It is important to make sure that the clinician you choose to engage in EMDR is a specialist certified by EMDRIA.
What’s the Difference Between EMDR and Brainspotting?
Both EMDR and Brainspotting are both highly effective in alleviating emotional distress due to trauma. There are a few key differences between the two modalities. While EMDR is based upon the knowledge that distressing memories can be processed and integrated more effectively with bilateral stimulation (such as guided eye movements), Brainspotting focuses on using the location of a person’s gaze (where a person looks) to reveal and help process areas of emotional or psychological distress in the brain. EMDR focuses on processing traumatic memories and associated negative beliefs, aiming to transform them into more adaptive, positive beliefs, while brainspotting emphasizes the body's physiological responses to trauma and distress, with a focus on accessing and processing unconscious material.
If you’re looking to treat trauma symptoms and are interested in either of these therapies, contact Mindful Living today to find out more about which approach may be best for you.
Providers
Several of our providers specifically work more intensely with client’s looking to work on how trauma continues to impact them. Marsel Shamouelian LCSWC utilizes non-verbal techniques learned in her Ferentz Institute training. Emily Needles LCPC utilizes EMDR to assist in processing trauma, and Mina Reyes LCPC utilizes Brainspotting to process trauma somatically.
How Therapy Can Help Heal Trauma?
Trauma survivors can go on to live happy and successful lives and build healthy and fulfilling relationships with themselves, the people around them, and the world. Through the process of therapy, people who have experienced traumatic events can use a confidential and non-judgmental environment to openly express their feelings, fears, and experiences, allowing clients to explore their emotions and thoughts without fear of judgment, which can be crucial for healing. In trauma therapy, individuals are guided to learn healthy coping skills to manage symptoms associated with trauma (such as anxiety, depression, and stress), address behavioral changes like avoidance or aggression, and improve overall emotional regulation, which can be particularly important for managing trauma-related symptoms like flashbacks, anger, or numbness.
Specific therapeutic approaches, such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Brainspotting, and somatic techniques are designed to address trauma directly and can be effective in reducing symptoms and processing traumatic memories. Through therapy, trauma survivors can build resilience and develop a sense of personal strength.
Trauma Treatment: What Is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is an evidence-based treatment method for trauma that focuses on utilizing our natural orienting reflex to access information internally stored in our mid brain. Brainspotting believes that by directly accessing the spot in the mid brain where the trauma is held, with the assistance of an attuned therapist, our inner regulation resources will aid in healing the brainspot. Brainspotting believes our nervous system is able to “self correct” when provided the right supportive environment. Brainspotting is utilized to process both physical and psychological symptoms of not only trauma, but anxiety, depression, and other common mental health concerns.
Brainspotting is a powerful tool that trained therapists use to release emotional and physical pain caused by trauma by accessing the subcortial area of the brain, which controls motion, consciousness, emotions and learning. By using physical eye sensations, Brainspotting helps the mind and body get “unstuck” from processing trauma through a mind-body connection. When engaging in Brainspotting, a trauma survivor can work through their symptoms without having to revisit the traumatic event itself and often without even talking during the session.
Meet the Team
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Marsel Shamouelian LCSWC (She/Her)
Adult Trauma Therapist
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Emily Needles LCPC (She/Her)
EMDR Adult Trauma Therapist
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Mina Reyes LCPC (She/Her)
Brainspotting Adult Trauma Therapist
Peter Levine
“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”
Ryan North