Trauma can stem from a powerful one-time incident or from chronic or repetitive experiences. A traumatic event or situation creates psychological trauma when it crushes our ability to cope and leaves us feeling fearful or emotionally overwhelmed.
Surviving trauma is not a result of conscious decision-making. When the trauma occurs, our five senses pick up the signs of danger, causing the brain to turn on the adrenaline stress response system. As we prepare to fight or flee, our animal brain kicks in, turning off our thinking brain to increase response time. Therefore, we often do not remember parts of the event or make the connection to the triggers that keep us experiencing the trauma. The natural human survival response does not allow ourselves bear witness to our own experience.
We are left with an inadequate record of what happened, no felt sense of its being over, and little awareness of how we endured it. If we have immediate support and safety afterward, we may be left shaken, but the events will feel behind us. If the events have been recurrent or we are young and vulnerable or have inadequate support, we can be left with a host of intense responses and symptoms that tell the story without words, and without the knowledge that we are remembering events and feelings from long ago.
When the survival response system is chronically activated, resulting in long-term feelings of alarm and danger, we experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In the case of PTSD, there are two clusters of symptoms; high arousal symptoms (e.g. nightmares, flashbacks, feeling keyed up) and low arousal symptoms (feeling numb, cut off, or hopeless). While it can initially feel frightening to begin processing traumas, recognizing triggers and symptoms, it can also feel empowering to reduce the power they hold over us.
At Healthy Connections Counseling Center, we use a variety of techniques and approaches to help people who have experienced trauma. Trauma treatment approaches and techniques are integrated to each individual’s needs to allow them the space they need to attend to their pain, so they can feel integrated and whole. Treatment and techniques include:
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
- Somatic Experiencing and Embodiment
- Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Trauma Education
- Resilience Training
- Mindfulness Training
- Trauma-Informed Yoga
- Internal Family Systems