Do You Wonder If Trauma Therapy Is Right For You?

Do you find yourself acting unlike who you want to be?

Irritable with loved ones, jumpy, too adrenalized or too sluggish? You might have trouble concentrating, or you could feel detached from others. There are things you can’t get out of your mind, and your thoughts get in your way.

You beat yourself up for it, and you want to fulfill your potential. Or, you’re already successful, yet you’re still not comfortable in your own skin. You know who you want to be at home, but you can’t seem to get there. It’s unsettling.

Something happened.

Out of the blue, something terrible happened to you or someone you love. Or your past was pretty rough for awhile. You keep telling yourself you should be “over it.”

You might have baffling or disturbing symptoms:

• Trouble sleeping or disturbing dreams
• Seeing painful images in your mind
• Avoiding things you used to love: an activity, place, or relationship
• Being with others, even people you like, might be hard
• You might feel irritable, disconnected, or even spacy

You just can’t relax.

Some days, you wake up with a sense of dread, especially if you know the day has too much going on. Too many people. Situations you can’t control. You stay busy to avoid thinking, but you get an upset stomach or massive headache.

You wish you could just relax, get it together, and live the life you know you’re capable of.

With a trained trauma therapist, help is available.

The good news is that we now understand PTSD better than ever before. Advances in the field of traumatic stress, including neurobiology, have yielded effective, research-based PTSD treatments built on how the nervous system responds to, recovers from, and adapts to stress.

I’ve worked with many men and women who have healed from trauma, who have seen their symptoms significantly decrease or disappear altogether, and who have found the joy, freedom, wholeness, and peace to live their lives as they wish.

Looking Under the Hood:  We’re going to take the mystery out of your symptoms.

Your responses to stress no longer work well for you, but there’s a good reason why you respond like you do.  You’re going to learn a lot about your nervous system!  Your automatic responses to stress might seem like the enemy. But, you might be surprised that learning more about your stress can come as a huge relief.

We’ll use research-supported methods to work through the stress responses that don’t help you, and almost all clients tell me it’s a relief to understand that their responses were actually adaptive.

What Can Trauma Therapy Do?

A big piece of recovery is that clients begin to respect themselves and understand their resilience and courage. Many come to see their bodies as a friend again, rather than the enemy, or even a separate entity. Many clients learn to make peace with all the parts of themselves that they were feeling separated from.

Clients begin to trust themselves and regain a sense of control. This work has improved their relationships, work lives, health, and contentment.

What is Trauma Therapy or PTSD Treatment Like?

Trauma therapy has to be safe.

You need to know that your therapist knows what she or he is doing.  We do this work using specific, research supported techniques and approaches.  You must be allowed—with guidance—to choose what you share, what techniques are used, and when.

To shed your old responses to stress and find new freedom, we’ll use a “phasic” approach in accordance with best practices in trauma therapy. This means we’ll approach it in stages, taking time to build trust before we do anything else. Sessions are never about “ripping the band-aid off.” Everything we’ll talk about and every exercise is collaborative and will be within your control. That said, there are treatments for trauma, such as Lifespan Integration, that can help many people experience relief more quickly than they expect.

Remembering everything is not required.

While many clients will want to participate in an evidence-based approach to telling their story, there’s no need to discuss every event from the past. You will have the option to choose or change whatever methods we use. Together, you and I will discover your own resources of strength and safety (which you might not realize you have), and use them in the counseling process.

What’s My Background as a Trauma Therapist?

I have worked with PTSD sufferers for about twelve years. I’m a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional with the International Association of Trauma Professionals and a member of the International Society of Stress and Dissociative Disorders.  My graduate education research focused on trauma, PTSD, and the intersection of trauma and grief. And, I am trained in Lifespan Integration, Internal Family Systems, and other powerful options for healing trauma.

I have worked with survivors of violent and traumatic events and losses, first responders, veterans, survivors of sexual assault and childhood abuse, medical trauma survivors, and those who have difficulty putting their finger on the cause of their symptoms.

I have worked with many people like you whose symptoms have since subsided. It is an honor to work with people through their stress and see them begin to feel whole.

You are not destined to be anxious, irritable, and disconnected.

It is possible to make peace with yourself. It is possible to feel at home in your body, in relationships with others, and moving around in the world. It is possible to develop respect for yourself and to trust yourself. You can learn to believe in a hopeful future.