Clients are often surprised when i tell them that we won’t be actively working to bring their trauma history to the surface in therapy. It’s not that we wouldn’t ever want to do that—when the time is right, trauma processing* in a safe, supportive environment has a role to play in the journey of trauma integration. But research has found that telling the trauma story is ineffective in bringing relief from symptom of trauma and sometimes can be harmful (retraumatizing). Careful preliminary work with other strategies needs to take place before working with the trauma story itself.
A heavy focus on telling the traumatic story reflects outdated notions of what trauma does to people and how to treat it.
We will first carry out a gentle and sensitive therapeutic needs assessment of how the trauma has impacted the child, which may include ptsd symptoms but may also include other difficulties impacting on home life and school life. Our assessment will take into account the child’s views and the parent’s observations and, if helpful we can involve the school in building up a holistic picture of how the child is managing. Sometimes it can be helpful to use psychological measures to get a fuller picture of how the child is feeling and the coping strategies they have developed. This usually takes place over one or two appointments.
Types of Trauma Therapy
Brainspotting therapy emotional trauma mental health treatment trauma counseling
roughly 70% of adults will experience some type of traumatic experience at least once in their lives. 33% of children and youth will be exposed to violence within their community that will cause them to experience ptsd ( post traumatic stress disorder ). For years, doctors have looked for better, more effective ways of dealing with trauma.
Since people experience and process traumatic events differently, it can be hard to point out a therapy method that is most effective. Counseling centers and therapists utilize a number of different types of trauma therapy to help people through their most vulnerable times.
Everyone experiences stress in their lives, but when an event or series of events is exceptionally stressful, it is called a trauma or traumatic experience. Trauma therapy and trauma counseling can help address such an experience. Those who have been directly affected as survivors, as rescue workers, or as friends or relatives of victims, as well as those who have witnessed tragedy and devastation, either firsthand or on television, may be suffering from the effects of trauma. What makes an experience traumatic are a sense of horror, utter helplessness, serious injury, or the threat of physical injury or death.
How to Get Started
Your client’s first retelling of their trauma story should focus on the facts of what happened. Encourage them to share the who, what, when, and where of their traumatic experience. Thoughts and feelings will come in later. Trauma narratives are most effective when they’re written. However, for many people, it will be difficult to get started with a completely blank canvas. In these cases, talking through the facts will make it easier to write them down later. If the facts are too difficult to get out, break things down further. Ask your client to write separate entries about what happened before, during, and after their trauma.
Wherever you are, start there. All points north has built a full continuum of care to provide multiple “front doors” where you can get started with treatment, whether you’re in crisis, maintenance, or progress already. Apn offers residential treatment and partial hospitalization programs at all points north lodge in edwards, co. Virtual intensive outpatient programs (9-10 hrs. /week) are available through the apn connection app. Outpatient groups, 1-on-1 therapy and psychiatry, and support groups are also offered virtually through apn connection. Not sure where to start? that’s pretty normal. Our in-house team will help you sort out all the details and find the right starting point for you.
We may not necessarily notice how traumatic experiences are affecting us because we are getting by day-to-day, or the results of trauma don’t reveal themselves until years later. It’s not unusual to see people enter therapy because of symptoms of depression or anxiety , but through a few sessions it may become clear that these conditions are related to unprocessed trauma. Symptoms can be difficult to pinpoint yourself since they can develop over time. Some warning signs to look out for include: chronic sadness or anger physical symptoms like nausea, headaches or digestive issues lack of trust in others if you experience issues or symptoms like these, especially if they are persisting for prolonged periods of time, they are affecting your relationships with others, or are otherwise disrupting your daily life, consider reaching out to a qualified, trauma-trained therapist to start unpacking why this might be happening.
Trauma can stay with you long after the threat of harm has passed. It courses through you, buries itself in your flesh, seeps into your bones, and entangles itself in your mind. Sometimes it remains even after you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do after trauma, even after the talk therapy and the self-help books, the yoga retreats and the journaling, the trauma recovery groups and the medication. But there may be another path to recovery. Ellen ledley has seen people heal from even the most enduring traumas through an innovative body-focused therapy called somatic experiencing (se), that dramatically reframes our understanding of traumatic experiences and the recovery process.