Trauma
Have you ever experienced trauma?
Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing event or experience. It can come from anywhere. Car accidents, the loss of a loved one, frightening birth experiences, pregnancy loss, military deployment, abuse and many other experiences can result in personal trauma.
But it’s not just about what happens to you that makes trauma so difficult. It’s how your body responds after the traumatic event.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
We often associate trauma with life-threatening experiences like war or terrible accidents. Working with people in counseling, we’ve learned that trauma can result from the threat of loss of an important relationship–like a marriage.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is one way people exhibit symptoms of trauma. PTSD symptoms can include:
- nightmares
- irrational fear
- flashbacks
- mood swings
- difficulty concentrating
- fatigue, aches, and pains
- feeling numb or hopeless
Trauma symptoms don’t just go away on their own. People don’t just “move on” from trauma. It takes purposeful healing to worko through the effects of painful, traumatic events. This is especially true when whatever has been traumatizing is still happening in the here and now.
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EMDR Therapy
EMDR stands for “Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing” and is a well-known therapy proven to help people heal from trauma. It’s believed that EMDR mimics the rapid eye movements of REM sleep and helps your brain process traumatic memories in more adaptive ways.
In EMDR, we trust that your brain knows exactly what it needs to heal–but the way it’s “stored” the traumatic memory is getting in your way in the here and now. EMDR allows your brain to “clean up” and put things where they belong–so to speak. It’s quite an amazing process, really.
EMDR allows your brain the freedom to re-experience old, traumatic memories in a safe environment and reprocess them with healthier ways of seeing the world. EMDR has a long history of successful clinical trials and is known all over the world as an effective trauma treatment protocol.
Our therapists are trained in EMDR therapy. We treat clients every single day and experience the amazing results with our clients. We would love to have you experience the same healing as so many others have experienced.
What is betrayal trauma?
There are some types of trauma that can be harder to notice than others. In our counseling work, we’ve learned that you can actually experience trauma when your relationship is in danger. If you rely on someone, like a parent or spouse, and that relationship is threatened, you can actually experience trauma symptoms that can really cause problems in your life.
Because we specialize in compulsive sexual behaviors–sometimes called sex addiction or pornography addiction, we see this type of thing every day. For example, partners of individuals struggling with problematic sexual behaviors often feel deeply betrayed by the behaviors and wonder whether their relationship can survive. These partners often experience symptoms that mirror post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The nightmares, fears, panic attacks, mood swings, and flashbacks are all there. Many people, including otherwise excellent therapists, don’t understand how betrayal trauma works. These people, when trying to offer help, can make a partner’s trauma worse. Helpers with specialized training and experience can provide the level of care that those suffering from betrayal trauma need to heal.
