Trauma Therapy For Trauma SurvivorS

Trauma therapy is available for people who have survived trauma. Is that you? Do you struggle with anxiety or depression? Are there unwanted memories or re-living of a trauma? If so, do you experience sweating, heart palpitations, or panic attacks? Is there a constant sense of dread or a sense that something bad happened, even though the specific experience can’t be recalled? Is there hyper-vigilance, jumpiness, irritability, edginess, nightmares, flashbacks, or poor concentration? Are you easily overwhelmed or confused?

These are some of the symptoms of trauma. Traumatic experiences include physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, and relationship betrayal. The most common cause of trauma symptoms in men is combat. The most common cause in women is sexual assault. In both sexes, witnessing death or injury causes trauma. Trauma can also be caused experiencing by a natural disaster, however studies have shown that trauma deliberately inflicted by other people is more debilitating than trauma caused by experiencing a natural disaster.

If you have had a traumatic experience, especially one inflicted by another person, you carry a pain that is extremely heavy. In order to cope with this pain, you may isolate, deny the experience or push it away, escape into activities and people, become a people-pleaser, or fall into perfectionism. None of these coping mechanisms work. In fact, these strategies can actually eventually cause more pain. The solution is trauma therapy, which many people in your situation have found helpful.

You Are Not Alone

According to the National Council for Behavioral Health, seventy percent of adults in the US have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives. In 1992, a study of 1,000 adults verified this with sixty-nine percent having experienced a traumatic stressor in their lives. According to the Journal of Traumatic Stress, around eight percent of Americans will experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sometime in their lives. The same article says that five percent of Americans have already suffered PTSD within the past year, while others don’t have PTSD but do suffer from trauma-related stress reactions.

Trauma occurs when we experience an extreme event or a series of distressing events that overwhelm our body’s ability to cope and breaks down our sense of security. As a result, we are left feeling vulnerable or helpless, with difficulty trusting.

Because Trauma Involves Relationships, So Must trauma therapy

Excluding trauma from natural disasters, the thing that makes trauma so shattering is that it always involves a relationship. The parent, relative, authority figure, or stranger who perpetrated the trauma broke a trust. We call this trust, “the bond of human connection.” And when this bond of human connection is violated, our expectation for the relationship to be safe and secure is damaged. Our need as humans is for safety and security and we look to get that need fulfilled in our relationships. We need for our relationships to be a safe haven and a secure base. This need is hard-wired by our Creator into our design as humans. In order to survive in a fallen world, we need one another to provide a protection to keep us safe and to guard against outside forces that would harm us. But when the protection and safety that we naturally need from our close relationships is taken away, we find ways to survive the pain of betrayal (“I’m supposed to be able to trust you”) and the fear of not being safe (“You’re supposed to protect me, not hurt me”). The closer the bond, the greater the expectation is that one will be both physically and emotionally safe and secure in the relationship. So, the closer the bond, the greater the violation. The violation to this bond of human connection, results in a change in brain function where the brain’s ability to process emotion is negatively affected.

trauma therapy - flowers blooming on branch

How can you find healing from trauma? The evidence is overwhelming that healing from trauma takes place when trauma survivors have an environment of social support, but especially when they have a safe and secure attachment bond. The quality of one’s attachment bond is linked directly with the ability to regulate emotions. When the trauma survivor is able to tolerate intimacy, and to trust his or her partner with his or her helplessness and pain, the effects of trauma are radically reduced or eliminated.

The good news is that Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the therapy model we practice at SoulCare Counseling for trauma therapy, is specifically designed to help individuals and couples heal relational wounds, including those caused by traumatic experiences. In EFT trauma therapy, you or your partner will process the traumatic event(s) and re-establish healthy connections and security that will alleviate the fear, anxiety, and relational issues that resulted from traumatic experiences.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE Concerns About Trauma Therapy?

“I don’t want to talk about my trauma.”

This is definitely a dilemma because more than any other thing in trauma therapy, talking about your trauma brings up painful and overpowering memories and emotions. So, while it’s important that you get help through trauma therapy, it’s hard to talk about your trauma because it’s scary to think about opening up those wounds and feel that pain again. No doubt, that is scary! And it seems irrational to move toward pain rather than away from it. Listen, we honor where you are in your journey of working through the wounds caused by the violation of human connection. Be assured that your trauma therapy counselor will take it slowly and let you tell your story as you are ready to do so. The goal is for you to feel safe while you work on your trauma.

“How do I know that my problem stems from trauma and not just depression or anxiety?”

Depression and anxiety are often symptoms of trauma. But it is possible that you are struggling with depression or anxiety without a trauma history. I don’t know, and you don’t know. So, the first step in trauma therapy is to do an assessment and figure out what’s going on. If it is depression or anxiety, we’ll focus on that and work with that. If we discover that your depression/anxiety are symptoms of trauma, we’ll find that out and deal with the cause as well as the symptoms. Whatever it is, we’ll find it together.

“I don’t want to spend years in therapy; I just want to feel better as soon as possible.”

Of course you do, but no one can guarantees about the time frame for your trauma therapy because you’re unique. Each trauma survivor’s experience will be completely different from another trauma survivor. How long your trauma therapy takes depends on the nature of your trauma, what else may come up in therapy, and your commitment to the trauma therapy. Your counselor will work with you to accomplish as much as possible in a reasonable amount of time, but the goal of trauma therapy is for you to find peace, and there is no quick fix for that. We promise that we won’t drag counseling out, but we won’t rush it either so that you’re just back in therapy in a few months or years.

trauma therapy - flower hanging off branch

Begin Your Recovery Now

If you would like to schedule a free thirty-minute consultation to see if Emotionally Focused Therapy for trauma therapy can help you heal from trauma, use the contact link, or you can call or text 817-808-2606, or email info@soulcarecounselingdfw.com.

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