Trauma is not exclusive to war vets or victims of crime. Trauma is a reaction in your body and brain to unexpected, upsetting events — whether you are traumatized or not does not depend on the event, or the severity of it, but on how you experience it.
You do not necessarily have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) if you have trauma symptoms — and you do not need that diagnosis to be treated. If you have difficulties with memories that continue to trouble you — if you find yourself fighting tears remembering a past incident, if you continue to ask why something still bothers you after all this time, or you find yourself feeling numb all the time and don’t feel emotions until you are raging or in panic – it’s likely that trauma treatment will be able to help you.
In my practice, as a certified EMDR provider, I use EMDR for many clients. This method incorporates cognitive behavioral and somatic work to address the memories that trouble the client. For more information on this modality, this website provides an explanation of the technique. I include additional interventions such as Internal Family Systems to assist people in recovering from C-PTSD and/or prepare for EMDR. Internal Family Systems is a modality that helps us build self esteem, bring coherence to our chaotic internal response to trauma, and restore access to the true Self.
I might utilize the Flash Technique, an evidence-based process developed by Dr. Philip Manfield as an adjunctive technique to assist in the EMDR process. With further research and development this process is now considered a standalone intervention that can be used to process trauma or reduce phobic or other negative responses.
Some clients may be appropriate for Deep Brain Reorienting, a procedure that works from the bottom up – the goal is to access the core of the traumatic experience in a way that tracks the original physiological sequence in the brainstem. There is no cognitive component. It operates below the realm of the cognitive, in a space of emotion and sensation, without analysis or storytelling. DBR “gets to the point” without needing months of insight therapy, in a way that keeps the mind from being overwhelmed by high intensity emotions, nor diverted into compartmentalization of ego states.
If you have experienced trauma along with others – a car accident, a workplace incident, or other shared experience – I am starting to use Group EMDR, a protocol designed to assist multiple people in processing trauma at the same time. For more information on this please use the contact form on this page.