Trauma Therapy
Is A Painful Past Affecting Your Experience Of The Present?
Do you or your child struggle with emotional distress or intrusive thoughts related to a painful memory or experience? Are your central relationships suffering because you don’t know how to express your needs? Have budding symptoms of anxiety or depression caused you to wonder if it’s time to face traumatic elements from your past?
Perhaps you or your child experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or neglect at an early age. Or maybe you’re the product of verbally abusive parents whose comments impacted your self-esteem and ability to form healthy connections with others. It could be that symptoms of complex PTSD—like emotional dysregulation, guilt, and negative self-beliefs—have developed as a result of the recurrent distress you internalized as a child.
Then again, maybe your traumatic experience is more recent. You may have been involved in an accident or violent incident and have since been unable to shake the sensations of fear and hypervigilance that impact your daily life. Alternatively, you may be in a profession, such as first response or the military, that regularly exposes you to heightened stress and critical situations.
Regardless of where your trauma originated, it’s likely you have developed certain coping mechanisms or internal responses to help you deal with the discomfort brought on by intrusive thoughts. Perhaps you’ve noticed an increase in symptoms related to depression, such as sadness or hopelessness, or acute symptoms related to anxiety, like panic attacks and an onset of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It could even be that you or your child have developed a habit of using substances to numb the pain or lashing out at those around you because they simply cannot understand the pain you’re enduring.
At Insight Counseling Center, we understand the dangers posed by unresolved trauma. And that is why our therapists use trauma-informed approaches and treatments to help you understand and reassess your relationship with the past.
Trauma Is An Inevitable Component Of The Human Experience
It’s highly unlikely—nearly impossible, even—that any of us will get through life without experiencing some form of trauma. Instances of child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and neglect are rampant, and we know that early instances of violence and abuse carry long-term effects that will later impact our relationships with others and ourselves.
And even if we had a relatively good childhood complete with healthy attachments, we’re bound to experience some form of loss or emotional injury that has the potential of traumatizing us. For instance, we may undergo some form of medical trauma (a botched surgery or an illness that lands us in critical care) or watch as a loved one suffers from terminal sickness. While trauma certainly exists on a spectrum, it nevertheless touches all of us at some point or another.
Unfortunately, many of us choose to self-medicate or compartmentalize when it comes to facing the distressing memories of our past. And though substances and avoidance may provide us with a quick fix for our pain, it’s difficult for us as inexpert individuals to get to the biological root of traumatic memories.
At Insight Counseling Center, however, our counselors are trained in body-based therapy models designed to target trauma so that you can feel a renewed sense of hope, peace, and resilience.
Therapy Gives You The Opportunity To Identify, Reprocess, And Heal From Trauma
Though you may very well maintain strong and intelligent support systems in your life, therapy can give you an opportunity to develop a meaningful relationship with a trained mental health clinician who can offer valuable perspective and strategies for coping.
Our team of professional, nonjudgmental, and compassionate counselors can provide you or your child with an effective toolbox and resources that you can take with you for life. Moreover, we find that building a strong relationship with your therapist will arm you with the necessary insight to continue fostering healthy relationships with others.
At Insight Counseling Center, trauma treatment is entirely tailored to your unique needs so that, together with your therapist, you can locate the solutions that will help to affect positive change in your life. After a few initial sessions spent gathering your history and getting a sense of your life’s most pressing stressors, your therapist will gain a sense of your goals for treatment and walk you through the potential avenues for relief, including body-based therapies, trauma-informed skills building, and mindfulness techniques.
While we do draw from traditional cognitive-behavioral frameworks, our treatment is rooted in holistic approaches and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to target trauma. EMDR works to clear the blocked neural pathways in the brain so that you can develop new and less distressing associations with painful memories. And while this method has been proven effective for treating a wide variety of mental health conditions, we find that it’s particularly useful for individuals struggling with symptoms of PTSD or unresolved trauma.
You can restore your life and neutralize painful experiences from your past so that they’re no longer creating problems in your relationships. It’s all possible with trauma therapy at Insight Counseling Center.
Perhaps you’re ready to talk to a counselor about your trauma, but you have some questions…
I’m concerned about the cost of trauma therapy.
Living with unresolved trauma is painful and takes a toll on our mindset and capacity for resilience. An investment in therapy is an investment in yourself as you learn the skills and develop the perspective needed to effectively cope with trauma and become unstuck from the past.
I’m still not sure I understand how EMDR works and why it’s good for trauma treatment.
EMDR—or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing—works by clearing neural pathways in the brain that are stuck and have thus created damaging thought patterns. Because traumatic events are often stored as intense memories, EMDR helps you to create new associations with the past. While it may be an unconventional method of therapy, EMDR has proven to be a highly effective treatment approach for many disorders, especially when it comes to symptoms of unresolved trauma and PTSD.1
How long will it take until I feel better?
Our counseling philosophy at Insight is client-centered and highly individualized, so there is no one specific timeline for overcoming trauma. However, we have seen the benefits of EMDR as a gentle, body-based approach that helps clients in trauma therapy to experience relief from some of their symptoms almost immediately.
Give Yourself A Chance To Live Fully In The Present
If you or your child experience intrusive thoughts and emotional dysregulation as a result of past trauma, therapy at Insight Counseling Center can provide you with lifelong tools for coping. For more information about how we can help or to schedule an appointment, visit our contact page.
1https://www.healthline.com/health/emdr-therapy#effectiveness