HEALING TRAUMA

Psychological health can be compromised by unresolved trauma. The good news is that trauma can be healed. Trauma occurs when a person is overwhelmed by an event, series of events, or a set of ongoing conditions that the person perceived to be life threatening, leaving the individual to feel overwhelmed (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute). This trauma can be connected to an acute event (rape, surgery, accidents, war etc.) or to a chronic situation (ongoing physical or sexual abuse). We are hard wired to respond to traumatic events through fight, flight or freeze. Through your body, mind and spirit you can heal trauma wounds.

Some common trauma symptoms include: vivid and sudden memories (flashbacks); exaggerated startle responses, avoidance of thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma, avoidance of activities, places or people that arouse memories of the trauma, feeling detached, restricted affect, sleep disturbances, irritability or outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating. People often feel as if their body or emotions got “hijacked”. They just go from one state to the next with seemingly little understanding of what triggered the behavior/feeling/thought. They don’t feel “whole”.

In my practice I work with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) which has been extensively researched and shown to work very successfully on PTSD and other psychological disorders. I also utilize sensorimotor psychotherapy which offers a body-centered approach to heal trauma. I use the unique relationship between body and mind to help individual’s process traumatic events and decrease the psychological impact of the trauma on their everyday life. If you are currently struggling with coping in your day to day life and want to find a more effective way to relate back to yourself and the world, please consider contacting me to start focusing on the healing process.