What is Trauma Therapy?
It’s estimated that over 224 million adults have experienced at least one trauma. It’s prevalent, albeit horrifying. After trauma, your world can feel unsafe, and then anxiety makes your body feel unsafe too.
The good news? It’s treatable, and we specialize in helping you cope. Trauma therapy can help you make sense of your trauma history and feel more grounded in your life. When trauma happens, you need trauma-informed and competent therapy to support your recovery.
This month, we will be sharing blogs about trauma therapy and what that process is like. Today we are covering the basics of trauma therapy.
The Aftermath of Trauma
You might experience a range of things after trauma. Sometimes these symptoms or experiences will show up soon after trauma and are quickly identified. Sometimes you might not realize that you’ve experienced trauma until years later, and it takes time to recognize how that trauma affected you. There is no timeline for how and when these experiences might show up.
After trauma, you might experience the following:
Frequent obsessive thoughts about the trauma you experienced
Dreams, nightmares, or flashbacks about a traumatic event
A sudden shift in your worldview, believing that most things are bad and most people have bad intentions
Avoiding all reminders of your trauma, including people, places, smells, and similar circumstances
Shutting down when things feel stressful because life feels too overwhelming most of the time
Difficulty having functional relationships because of the ever-present sense of lack of safety with others
You might also experience symptoms like:
Upset stomach
Sweaty palms or underarms
Foggy thoughts or frequent dissociation
Depression and anxiety
Getting easily sidetracked with reminders of your trauma
Racing and un-welcomed thoughts
Unexplained physical symptoms
Trauma Recovery
Trauma is never your fault. It’s unjust, and we usually want to avoid traumatic memories and feelings as much as possible.
But, when trauma goes unaddressed, it can lead to:
Feeling disconnected in your relationships
Feeling overwhelmed for most of your day
Feeling chronically unsafe in your environment, your relationships, and your body
Feeling scared to leave your home or be alone
Worrying that another trauma will happen again, causing you to avoid social interactions and other “risky” environments
Recovering from trauma is a very particular kind of healing. Maybe you’ve tried different therapists and coaches, and you just can’t seem to fully manage your trauma response. Not all therapists know how to treat trauma-related disorders. Healing trauma requires specialty and trauma-informed practitioners to help you process your experience and manage the symptoms. In addition to the standard training, these practitioners do training, reading, and consultation to provide specialized trauma treatment.
What types of training do trauma-informed practitioners have?
Training in specific treatment modalities like EMDR and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
Supervision from practitioners who specialize in treating trauma
Actively participating in bookclubs on trauma-related topics
Consultation groups to consult with specialists on specific cases
Trauma Therapy
Dr. Tina Keys wrote, "Trauma-focused therapy seeks to understand how your traumatic experience impacts your overall psychological and physical well-being. The purpose of trauma-focused therapy is to offer a safe space to process trauma as well as learn skills and strategies to assist you in better understanding and coping with emotions and memories tied to the traumatic experience. The end goal of trauma therapy is to facilitate and encourage you to create a personally meaningful narrative of your life and find adaptive ways to move forward.”
Trauma therapy provides a space to talk about trauma, identify how it has impacted you, and process all of it. Trauma therapy can be conducted with individuals, couples, and groups. This type of therapy looks at more than what is currently going on in your life- this process will look more deeply into your experiences, beliefs about yourself, and how these things impact you.
Some benefits of trauma therapy:
Learning new coping skills
Reduction of symptoms and triggers
Improved relationships
Making meaning of your experiences
You can read more about the benefits of trauma therapy outlined by Dr. Keys here.
Do you think trauma therapy might be a good fit for you? You can read more about all of our Woven therapists here. Each therapist specializes in a different aspect of trauma therapy: ex: religious trauma, childhood trauma, queer trauma, and many more. Book a consultation with our therapist matchmaker today! Consultations are the perfect time to ask any questions you may have about our therapists, practice, and trauma therapy. We’re here to help.
All therapists at Woven Together Trauma Therapy are trauma-informed and specialize in treating all forms of trauma. We also offer EMDR, Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, and Brainspotting which has shown to be extremely effective in treating and healing trauma. Want to read more about our unique therapy options?
These blogs talk more about the basics of EMDR:
You can read more about Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy here:
If you would like to learn more about Brainspotting, check out our blog: What is Brainspotting?