Traumatic events can make day-to-day life a struggle. You may feel edgy, unable to settle down, irritable—or totally numb and shut down.

You may feel like your body and mind are on overdrive; you might be irritable, anxious, or unable to stop looking around for danger or expecting the other shoe to drop. You might be unable to sleep at night as your mind replays the event over and over, unable to relax enough to sleep. Not feeling like yourself anymore, you might feel disconnected from your friends and family, and unable to explain what you’re feeling or what is wrong.

You can feel like you are changed forever and things will never get back to the way they were..

These are normal human responses.

These are all normal responses to trauma. Even PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) symptoms are a normal response to trauma that has overwhelmed your body and brain’s capacity to cope during a traumatic event. Our brains evolved to include protective measures for dealing with trauma and those protective measures account for many of these feelings.

You may have heard about the fight, flight, freeze and fawn systems. These are neurologically-based responses to threats that evolved in humans for protection. We have no control over them—they happen below our level of consciousness. They can and do happen to everyone at some point, because they are a part of our physiological reflexes.

Sometimes our brain/body can heal from trauma on it’s own as time progresses. You might have had a trauma in the past that you recovered from on your own. But about 20% of the time*, the normal healing process of our brain gets stuck in trauma mode, and we need help to get out of it. Trauma therapy or PTSD treatment, done with a well-trained, compassionate and informed therapist provides the guidance and support to get the brain/body out of trauma mode and back to everyday functioning.

Trauma therapy brings you back to yourself.

Maybe nothing you have tried has really helped, or maybe your symptoms appeared long after you thought you’d “gotten over it”. In trauma therapy, I often start by helping you understand what is happening in your brain and body so you can start to understand these responses to trauma. I do this because it’s how I work—part of me always wants to understand what is going on and why something is happening to me. I feel reassured when I understand, and you might as well.

When you learn about how and why the brain creates the changes your are feeling —through the “flight, flight and freeze” responses (this is done by what is called the polyvagal system) — you start to see that there are ways to change them. I help you learn how to get back into the “rest and digest” states that allow us to relax and function. You can start to feel more in control again.

How EMDR Therapy Can Help

But maybe you have already tried some of these approaches. Sometimes, simply learning how to manage your nervous system is not enough for recovery because the trauma you experienced became deeply embedded in your system. This is when a trauma-focused therapy such as EMDR can really help you. EMDR helps you change the memory system that is keeping you frozen in reliving and re-experiencing, or avoiding and numbing. We do this together by revisiting the trauma while in a tolerable and regulated state (I help make sure this is happening) with a structure that allows your body’s natural healing process to kick back on.

Complex Trauma Approaches and IFS

When you have had a multiple distressing experiences over a long period of time (particularly in childhood), you may feel even more overwhelmed by the prospect of working though it all. I understand that it can feel overwhelming and want you to know that it is still achievable and rewarding to do.

In these situations, we take more time to work slowly. It is possible to unravel your patterns of thinking and behaviors that started to protect yourself from harm, but may not be working for you now. This can lead to what is often called complex PTSD, and you can change it! We start by building your sense of safety and stability, and your ability to identify and work with your reactions to trauma triggers. We also work on building your knowledge of and relationship to yourself that has been affected by your experiences. We work on building a transformative positive relationship with who you are and can be through internal family systems therapy (IFS).

How long does it take?

The length of trauma therapy can vary dramatically depending on your history. A single-event trauma with a relatively stable current life and limited trauma history can be resolved in a few sessions. Childhood trauma and chronic or multiple distressing or traumatic events can sometimes take a few years of working to change entrenched patterns. I will discuss and estimate this with you in our first meeting or two, but know that it can vary and is not always predictable.

What makes a good trauma therapist?

There are some important factors that go into good trauma therapy besides these alphabet soup approaches (EMDR, IFS, CBT, somatic, the acronyms can get so confusing). I have had advanced training and years of experience, both as a therapist and as a client doing my own healing work, in all of the approaches to trauma therapy that I use. Because I have gone through the work myself—though maybe not in the exact way you will—I know how the processes work and have confidence in them. In addition, they are all supported by research documenting their effectiveness.

But more than this, trauma therapy and PTSD treatment should provide an environment and a relationship that is drenched in calmness and safety, and this is what I take great pains to build with each person I work with. By focusing on you, your life, your goals and your individuality, by explaining every step with you, answering all your questions, and taking every part of you into consideration, I work with you to create the sense of safety and confidence that you can and will heal, and in fact, are healing already.

Recovery is Possible!

You can recover even from the most long-term childhood trauma or the most difficult experiences you have had. You have already gotten through them in fact, but you may need some help finding a way back to some of the life experiences you would have had if they hadn’t happened. We can’t change the events of the past, but we can change how the past is affecting your present and your future.

Common concerns about doing trauma therapy.

Will I have to relive it again?

This is an understandable concern, particularly because some forms of trauma therapy actually require a person to relive the trauma over and over again as a way of “desensitizing” the trauma. That is not actually helpful or needed in order to heal. Although good trauma therapy often does involve activating the trauma memory networks, it is always done after you have learned how to stay grounded in yourself and separate from the part of you that lived through the event. Good trauma therapy does not have you relive the event in the way that it occurred.

Will I have to go into all the details about what happened in talk therapy?

No, you do not have to tell the therapist details about what happened. Good forms of trauma therapy do not require the therapist to know everything. The therapist shows the client how to get into the state from which healing happens, then gets out of the way. Your work is done internally. When needed, I can do trauma healing work with people without knowing what the trauma is that we are working on. That doesn’t mean I am not with them and guiding them through the process, it just means that I can guide them without knowing the specifics of the traumatic event.

Sometimes, you do want to talk about what happened (again from a state in which healing can take place) but worry that it will overwhelm someone to hear it. I can hear, be with, and hold space for whatever you have experienced. But I teach you when and how to access trauma memories so that the experience is therapeutic rather than retraumatizing.

What if I am too broken to see progress?

Sometimes people have been coping alone with trauma symptoms so long that they have lost hope that feeling different is possible. I understand how that can happen. But research shows, has proven, that the brain has plasticity. This means that it can change—its size, shape and structure can change—throughout life, at any age. This means change is ALWAYS possible. It might be slow for some, and take hard work, but it is ALWAYS possible. I can and do hold that knowledge and hope for people who can’t see it yet.

Get back to living.

If you are ready to start the healing process, or have any questions about anything here, please call me at (970) 889-0038 or if you prefer, click the contact me button below.

I offer a free 30-minute consultation to let you get to know me and ask me any questions you have.

*Traumatic Stress Disorder Fact Sheet, Sidran Institute